PROSPERO, DEPARTING

“…the isle is full of noises” –The Tempest

His spells dissolved, the air
at last allowed to be
merely air

His staff changed to tree-fern,
cape a carpet of black iguanas
sunning

This island becomes us now:
each cave rehearses its own
rumble

the small volcanoes croon
to one another all night like
owls

Lizard and dove and tortoise,
we were ancient before these
strangers

Caliban was root and mud then,
Ariel a taste of sea-mist,
mere salt

Before she grew tall, Miranda
could track us where we hid,
found

footprint in moss, lichen
scribble on rock, a signal
guessed

She’s gone now into human-kind,
her dreamings lost: the island
sings itself