NAMES: FOR EDWARD BRATHWAITE


I
My race began as the sea began,
with no nouns, and with no horizon,
with pebbles under my tongue,
with a different fix on the stars.

But now my race is here,
in the sad oil of Levantine eyes,
in the flags of the Indian fields,

I began with no memory,
I began with no future,
but I looked for that moment
when the mind was halved by a horizon,