Brief Lives
The poem mentioned above starts with the mentioning of "Gardening in the tropics’’ which often results in discovering bones in the most unusual places. Sometimes, the narrator points out, bones are unearthed by volcanoes, that is possible violent political events which bring to the surface various secrets kept hidden until then.
The narrator talks about the skeletons he discovered in his small garden, an allusion made here to his limited political power. "The latest’’ skeleton belonged to a young man who did not agree with the political views of the rulers of the country and so he was eliminated as a result. The skeleton is buried once more to allow him to grow, or rather to grow the influence his life will have when he will be discovered once more.
The death of the young man goes unnoticed by the rest of the population but an opulent funeral is described, that of a former drug lord taken down by his rivals. In comparison with the young man, the drug baron received a full military funeral, attended by many influential people in the state who saluted him for what he has done over the years. This has the purpose to highlight the social inequality and injustice which existed in the society described by the narrator.
The Tree of Life
In this poem, the narrator starts with mentioning the arrival of the "Flood’’, a catastrophic event which made gardening, or rather discovering the truth, a lot harder. The narrative then moved to explaining the origin of the Tree of Life, an immense tree which produced all types of food so that no one staved. The Tree is called "The Firstborn’’ meaning that it was native to the land and acted as a symbol for it.
The poem has a mythological sense to in, the narrator mentioning a Creator which took care of everyone on Earth. The Tree was given as a present to humanity by the Creator who, upon seeing just how much humanity was suffering from hunger, was moved by them.
The poem can also be understood from a political point of view, the Creator representing the communism idea, according to which everyone is equal and the State is responsible for taking care of every person in the country. Still, reality differs from what is originally planned and there are people who want to keep everything from themselves. In this poem, the characters who want to keep the food for themselves are the Pig and the Rat, the animal sent to discover the place from where the Pig gets enough food to survive.
Humanity reached its boiling point and through violence, discovered the Tree. This may be a reference made to the many revolutions through which the common people took back the power from the oppressive regimes that ruled over them. The humans ate everything they wanted until they were no longer hungry. Their happiness was short-lived because the voice of the Creator came to the people, telling them to cut down the tree. After the tree was gone, the Creator told the people to take small branches from the tree and plant them, thus giving birth to farming.
The action of the poem then moves to the present, when the farmers are told to start cultivating only one crop. The people in charge wanted the farmers to plant only one crop so more can be exported and thus to have more money coming in. Many farmers listened and got rich but the possibility of having a bad weather destroy all their crops looms over their heads constantly.
The narrator ends the poem by expressing his conviction that men were supposed to plant everything they can, not only one crop. His argument is based on the ancient myth of the creator, arguing that if he wanted only one crop to be planted, then he would have never ordered the rest of the world to cut down the Tree.
Amazon Women
The poem starts with the story of Toeyza, an Amazonian woman who founded a nation of female warriors in mythology. Two missionaries wrote about these women and their name was Brett and Sir Walter. According to the legend, Toeyza had a lover named Walyarima who used to visit her during the night. One night, Toeyza and the other women in the village were sent by their husbands to gather what was needed for a great feast and during their absence the men caught Toeyza’s lover, killed him and skinned him. When the women returned, they killed all the men by poisoning them and then they were led by Toeyza deep into the jungle where they established the land of the Amazons.
It is unclear when the legend appeared for the first time but in time it was accepted by the native communities as being the truth and even promoted as such. the narrator hypotheses that maybe foreign visitors saw the women who took over the jobs of a men when their husbands were absent and were surprised to see a woman perform a man’s work. This is a good example of how the native population adapted to the hardships they had to endure and especially how women were quick to do everything they could to take care of their families.
The poem ends with the narrator painting a picture of a common Caribbean woman, taking care of a child while going to fetch water from a great distance. To the narrator, the image of the mother represented the spirit of the Amazonian woman, a person of extraordinary power and determination.
Tropic Love
The poem is told from the perspective of a woman who addresses her husband or maybe her partner. The first thing she tells him is how she is disappointed because he no longer brings her flowers, symbols of his affection for her. The woman also is mad at the man because he no longer takes care of the children and all the burden of taking care of a family falls on her shoulders.
The woman gives the man an ultimatum: he can decide to take care of the family or leave and forget completely above them. The last two lines of the poem are extremely important because through them, the woman tells the man that what she wants are clear actions, not empty words and promises.
The IMmovable Tenant
The poem starts with the narrator mentioning the presence of "unreasonable people’’ one comes across almost inevitably while gardening in the Tropics. The poem is among the longest in the collection and it tells the reality of how tenants are treated by their landlords.
The attention moves to the "old lady’’, a woman who was married many times and who suffered a lot in her life because she was time and time again disappointed by those around her. The former men in the old lady’s life tried to pretend that they have a lot more money that they had in reality.
The poem then goes to talk about how the wealth is all in the hands of landlords which do not live in the area and in the hands of powerful bankers from other countries. Thus, those people usually had all the power over the normal citizens who did not owned their houses and apartments.
A man came and bought the apartment where the old lady lived and then tried to convince others not to sell to other people, especially those from other countries. Despite this, the people talked with various foreign investors and when the first man learned about this, he started to behave extremely violent towards the tenants. In time, the man had control over every piece of land to the point where the tenants felt they could no longer breathe.
In the beginning, the narrator tried to oppose him, to make it hard for the man to acquire even more power. Still, as time progressed, the narrator realized that he could make more money from working with the landlord rather than working against him. The narrator was put in charge of taking care of the old woman and despite their efforts, the woman continued to live in her apartment, telling everyone about the dangers posed by the narrator and the investor. The poem ends with the woman expressing her assurance that no matter what happens, she will never be thrown out from the land which belongs to her.
