Matthew Caretti

The Secret of Longitude

After Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before

I venture down the steep coastal path to Poloa. Where tomorrow is not yet. Yesterday still is. The westernmost tip on the westernmost island of today.

antimeridian
the slow bend
by Tutuila

Nature does not hurry. Here where traffic enjoys a slow parade. Where the erosion of shoreline moves in centuries. So I pace the dateline. Watch the sun. Set with it.

zig and zag
of my footprints
longshore drift

On this razor’s edge of time I vow to take on the enigma. Wrestle with here and there. Now and then. Find a balance. Accept, finally and completely, the tragedy of moving on.

this flat earth 
rounds just a bit
island time

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About the Author

Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009. He has published two books of haibun, Harvesting Stones (2017, winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award) and Africa, Buddha (2022, Red Moon Press), and a book of haiku, Ukelele Drift (2023, Red Moon Press). He lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa.

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