Dan lépòk (At that time)

You bathed in musselblue

The heaven was your skin

Green-leaved breath kissed your hair

And the time was made of air

The water was also the sun

The wind suited you fine

You feel it was like a dream

That can only my Lemusa be

Jean-Marie Anthelme de Tromontis, around 1890

Santa Lemusa has forever stirred the poet’s soul – not merely that of Jean-Marie Tromontis (more about in German), who, in his renowned verses of «Dan Lépòk», has penned an ode to his childhood on the island. Santa Lemusa lies like a boomerang spread across the ocean, on the eastern fringe of an isle in the so-called Little Antilles, a cluster of Caribbean islands that stretches from Trinidad to the Virgin Islands. In the north, the waters of the Atlantic come crashing down in dark blues and wild silvery froth on a craggy coastline. In the south and the west laps the serene turquoise-green Caribbean Sea, and it is here that you will find beaches basking in the sunshine and palms swaying in the breeze.

[Translated from German by Gunvanthi Balaram]

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