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Immanuel Kant on the Shores of the Caribbean

A Poem by Daniel Bourne

(for Grant H. Cornwell)

We stand here at the Baltic

that point on shore

where Immanuel Kant saw both the water

and the idea of water like overlapping waves

in the same way that when he touched ideas

his hands cupped as if his mind were thirsty.

In the same way Kant did not travel

more than one hundred miles from his birthplace

but through the boat of his mind

could push off to any shore:

people and the idea of people

part of the same warp and weave of sail.

Thus, even to those islands of the West Indies

(almost as numerous as Baltic amber)

Kant could set his course of reckoning

the obligation to consider

the man bending low in the cane field on Antigua

the lash coming down on his back

the blows numerous as the sugar cubes

plopped down into the black lagoons

of Europeans’ tea.

For one to be free

we must all be free.

So many coastlines, coves and hidden reefs--

shackles and sunshine, Reggae and Creole--

each island a story

that has to be told

for the planet to be complete.

And, here, years later,

we are all still looking out upon the water

gazing to Konigsberg or St. Kitts

to Capetown or Kyoto,

high time

to leave the comfort of port--

[stanza break]

to ship out and serve

to describe and to relate.

Science and religion

from one common spring

—And think of that moment

when thought changes into action

as a blue heron walking

the shores of a small lake, his patient

practiced stride. And,

just as the orange sun starts to roll

below the rim of the horizon

his neck

will dart towards his goal.

April 26, 2008