The first thing I notice is that there is no dedication for this poem. After reading the poem I speculate that this is because there is no one left to dedicate it to.

This poem has a unique perspective of Columbus as a person. The speaker is a native of the island that is being approached. Each stanza or section (denoted with a special character “c”) starts with what Columbus can see from his “after-deck” and then flows into a contemplation of his motives. 1. he is fearlessly sailing for discover, 2. did he intend to massacre the natives in such a gruesome way? 3. Is this a discovery or a slave trading endeavour?

Also, throughout the poem the speaker contemplates the above motives but the language suggests that he/she already knows the answers. The vivid descriptions of the violence and murder but also the continual use of “his and him” and “my and our” showing that the speaker sees a very distinct and important division between the boat off the shore and the native people.

The end of the poem seems to seal the deal in terms of whether it is an endeavor of violence or discovery. In the lines, “Now he was sure/he heard the soft voices mocking in the leaves,” and, “I watched him pause/then he was splashing silence/crabs snapped their claws/ and scattered as he walked toward our shore.” These lines say to me, knowing the history of Columbus’ journey to the Carribean, that this was the moment when Columbus decided to make his first journey one of conquest instead of discovery.

I found this poem pretty powerful. It was one of the first ones that I could actually understand the first time I read the book, but I have found more than I did the first time. There are descriptions, from a “native” perspective of the land, of how beautiful it is. I find it so powerful because so much of history could have been different if this one moment in time had gone differently, if the greed of white men, of the conquerors had not existed or not been called upon during the “Discovery he sailed for.”