Month: January 2011

“Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.”
—W. B. Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”

In today’s paper, an obituary for a scholar
who’d once taught in our midst— he died
Sunday, nearly two weeks to the day his wife
passed, just a few days after the new year. I knew
who they were but didn’t really know them:
might have seen them at the local coffee shop,
reading the news and eating toasted bagels; or
walking past the laundromat, melting into
the crowd of couples out for brunch. I’d never
thought too much about what it might be like to grow
old alone, or lonely; had more than once declared
that travel solo might be the better way to go—
no expectations, no one to have to pick up for
or after, no epics to endure and survive for dubious
reward (roots like mangroves’ anchored
in marshy soil… ) But even when the narrative’s over,
when the loggers have loaded up the rig and rolled
out of town (inaudible hush, low clouds
suspended above the highway), something in the air
will shimmer, something will always catch.
I stick an arm out, and white motes dot my sleeve.
I lean my forehead on the windowpane and feel my
bindings loosen. I want to hear the air puffed out
the sides of a bandoneon, to master the tangled
slide of paired legs across a polished floor.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.25.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Consider the sun today, which sparkles more
like a wheel of tin instead of burnished bronze—

Consider the burdock which, though squat
and uncomely, casts a thin and graceful shadow—

Consider the brittle branches whose pencilled forms
yet bring to mind the musk of summer magnolias—

One day, syllables snagged so long in the throat
will marry bright crystals of salt—

One day a mouth will press against another like the curve
of the moon on a hillside, like a homecoming—

One day the world will be that room,
and that room only.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.24.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

The man walking his dog notices that under the bridal
wreath bush, a cardinal flickers like a pilot light.

The woman at her window sees the moon not yet
completely faded in the sky, half a pair of pearl earrings

she still keeps in her drawer though the other
has long gone missing. What parts do we need

to complete each other? Sometimes the day
wobbles like a cart with one wheel.

Sometimes it arrows like a train through
the countryside, even though we don’t see it.

We hear its rush onward, its insistent
push toward the distance. The cold

is intense today, and hard to withstand
alone, out in the open. The man gestures

to his dog and retraces his steps.
The woman turns away from the window.

In the bushes, a tiny red brushstroke
wavering in the cross-hatched branches.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.22.2011 (via Blackberry)

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Tell me again that story of the woman by the well,
and of the wanderer who asked to drink from the dark water.

On the banks, river stones gleam like cut topaz, like milky agate or
ovals of smooth amber— such contrast against the dark water.

In the kitchen above the shed, the stove comes to life and a kettle
whistles. Tea or coffee grounds swirl, darkening the water.

Squares of paper hang like laundry on an indoor clothesline.
Someone is waiting for prints to batten in trays of dark water.

Small birds migrating from sleep cluster near the windows—
Don’t eat the merest kindness, like bread thrown upon dark water.

Juncos fill the lilac, nearest cover to the stream’s unfrozen section.
Five or six at a time, they flutter down to drink from the dark water.

Who keeps filling this earthen pitcher? Once and for good
I’d like to break it on the hearth and pour out all the dark water.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.21.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.