A Monkey's Wedding

A sunshower at sunset in the Mojave Desert

“ . . . they say here that the devil

Is beating his wife when the sun shines through the wires

of fine, fine rain”—Derek Walcott

That's in Trinidad. In Tennessee, Satan's kissing her.

In South Africa, Jackal's marrying Wolf's wife,

Or it's a monkey's wedding—

But in places, from Korea to Catalonia, a fox's wedding.

Each animal's a stand-in for a man who does what only humans can.

“Le diable bat sa femme pour avoir des crêpes,”*

Quebecois say. (You'll beat no wife of mine for pancakes;

No matter if for Johnny Canuck's sakes!)

Jackals, foxes, and apes, like folk, may wed on rainy days.

Afraid to be alone, they wish to be,

Lacking a better route to light in bed.

*“The devil beats his wife to get some crêpes.”

The Saint Lucian poet and playwright Sir Derek Alton Walcott OM (1930–2017) won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Saturday, January 24, 2026