Nightwalk in Bermuda

When last in Bermuda, we stayed in the very historic village of St. George. This place is utterly timeless and can be remembered as the scene of many British Navy goings-on in over two hundred years or so of the age of sail. St George is also the landing place for the annual Newport to Bermuda Race, where all the uber-wealthy show up to drink beer at the White Horse Tavern after bashing over 600 miles of the Atlantic in their expensive toys. During our stay, Laura and I took a nightwalk through the crooked streets and ended up at Folly's Cathedral, an old church that was built upon in fits and starts over decades more than a hundred years ago- but never finished. We stood just inside in the pitch dark and looked at the stars shining through the open ceiling where the roof was never installed. A walk thorough a town as ancient as St. George is almost surreal, and at night one feels as if time itself is blurry around the edges.

Out of that evening came another poem...

Night walk in St George’s


We walked a crooked mile
Under age-cracked eaves and scattered stars
Suspended above the bay where mooring lights traced new constellations
Echoed in dark shimmering ink.
The cobbles polished by the storied footsteps of four centuries and more,
Wound among lime-topped roofs and pastel walls
Steeped in English propriety.
We walked quickly for the time we’d stolen,
For adventures shared
One more among the many
When hands are held against the next dark corner turned
And we together are all that keep us safe.
Safe to witness the onyx emptiness
Of stone piled high to no purpose but folly.
To feel the chill of time’s presence midst the yawning spans
that let in the night where joisted roof tiles belong.

Sometimes we need the space of aimless wanders
To teach ourselves out-loud what we may already know in whispers.
That it is times like these together,
strung like pearls
on the beach of this Atlantic dustmote,
That make up the lovely moments of our lives.
Like the tropic's stolen treasures,
We steal ourselves away so we can sense those truths.
And on a midnight streetscape we walk hand-in-hand,
Talk, lean together, and know
That we’ve glimpsed way more than just
our numbered years.
We’ve seen our lives joined
In moments hidden from the process of living.
Captured, mounted & framed instants,
Suspended brightly in the space of what we are
Together.