THE URGE THAT MUST BE MET

Translating Derek Walcott's poem I hear

the neighbour's dog barking in the black night

extending to here, this room

where the only light is the laptop's screen,

having sat hours since the gray afternoon

unmoving transfixed by words and wars,

and now the barking and the poem

I'm translating combine to bring up

the old urge to write, that siren

call so hard to resist, so I put

the Sea-Grapes unifinisheh aside

to write these lines,

to silence that call,

the urge

that must be met

                                  and as finished

as this ever will be, will write the other

one, a faint echo of the poem

I first came to write, born

of dark night, sound and grapes

from a Caribbean orchard,

buried in a shallow grave

by too many thoughts

that came together as this.

13.11.2025