The Elusive Foret

Martinique is officially part of France, just like Hawaii and Alaska are a part of America. We have a French courtesy flag flying on our boat right now. There are French people everywhere and Marin is primarily a small town with a really big marina - so the yachting world and European atmosphere somewhat overpowers the Caribbean feel here. I've met more French people than West Indians in this place. So we discovered that in this particular harbor, only special people are allowed to pay for wireless internet - people who are also paying the marina to perch on their dock. Being that we aren't that kind of special, we found that a local bar quite close to our anchorage had wireless access. So Quay 13, pronounce "kay trez," became our home away from home. I am now on quite good terms with the entire staff at Quay 13 - including Samir who brings me an endless supply of olives and lends me his computer, Cindi and Solan, the lovely bartenders with whom I try to practice my French, and Solan's young son Wilson, an adorable little monster wih skin the color of creme brulee, big blue eyes and an afro of tousled brown blonde curls standing out in all directions. Then of course, there is William, one of the owners, who has declared himself my personal tour guide and has already graciously taken me on a day of adventures.

He picked me up on his motorcycle and asked "Do you like to go fast?" Haha. Silly question, my friend. So we sped off through the Martinique countryside, with the sun shining, the wind flying by and the lush greenery scrolling past like a moving painting of pastoral charm. At one point, we came to a field of white cows. The grass was so incredibly green; that kind of lemony green, like it had swallowed a bit of sunlight and was burning from within. And the cows were very regal looking. If you could imagine cows less plump and more angular, and looking at the world arond them in a very buddhist-like detached state as if nothing could phase them. White cows with sunlight blazing off their fur. White cows standing, and lying down, in groups of two or three, and alone, and staring - all defined by that green, green grass. And sitting amongst, around, and on the backs of some of the cows were white egrets adding even a touch more elegance to a scene which belonged painted on a delicate and frilly piece of china - or hanging in a museum somewhere. In the background, a French plantation villa sprawled on the hillside framed with gently waving palms. Bougainvillea and a multitude of other wildflowers oozed down the slopes encroaching on the green with feathered feelers.

Later I saw a tree. A tree with no leaves, only bare branches, all reaching out to form a fan above it's trunk. And in every nook of every branch was an egret standing. Maybe 30 of them all splayed out evenly as if they had discussed the pattern of their arrangement ahead of time so as to make a perfect picture of balance and natural symmetry. I may be the only person who now knows that egrets DO grow on trees. But I tell you, I believe.

Later we arrived at the Petrified Forest, a place William had never been. As we hiked through a tunnel of jungle-like foliage we saw a mongoose stalk past low to the ground with its tail straight out behind it like a hunting dog pointing towards its prize. The air was choked with butterflies (papillon) in butter, amethyst, and tangerine. There was a little wooden bridge accessed by stepping stones leading us into le foret de petrification. William kept saying as we were hiking in "Ou est le fucking foret?" (Where is the fucking forest?) It was a bit hard to see the forest, certainment. Like most petrified sites, picked over for years by ravenous trinket hungry tourists, there was not much left of the forest but a few rocklike objects which looked like they might have tree circles. But the coastline was gorgeous and the windward side of the island as always gave me great pleasure as the wind ripped across the landscape and huge waves crashed upon the jagged rocks in an endless interchange of wave theory and resonance, communion and interference, rage and stillness and perpetual motion. That crashing semi-rhythmic pulse reminds me that being on the water and being at the water's edge - where it meets it's antithesis, the hard for it's soft, the shape for it's no shape, the canvass on which it pounds out it's symphony - are two very different things, both holding great merit.

We failed to find the elusive foret, but were not unsatisfied with the journey nevertheless.