Above these mossy tendrils
on a slender, pliant branch
Caribbean reinita sways,
content to sing alone,
while coquis chirp
like birds themselves,
until the night
has washed out with the tide.
This brown reinita sings of all
the sounds that salsa missed:
the echo of a flower world,
a distant, pounding waterfall,
green darkness just below
the lushest ferns.
So small and shy,
Latina nightingale.
Her song careens off
palm tree trunks
and fills the misty air
with essence of Caribbean,
a gently sung desire,
the warmest of the whitest sands,
a world unstroked by human hands,
a Puerto Rican, Spanish lullaby.
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