What will not last? What will remain? Three flies buzzing
behind drawn window shades.
The shroud that carpets the grass
at dawn. This kind of frost
evaporates before noon. Take
what you can but choose wisely—
the fruit that you love, the fleshy
globe in whose heart sits a stone.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 22 2014
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

A goldfinch dips its beak into the fountain’s rain-filled basin. Ivy and overgrowth circle what used to be servants’ quarters; a carpet of weeds has taken over the curved driveway. Legends still abound: how in the abandoned mansion, the dictator’s ghost rakes paths along the upper hallways, banging each door open in search of dark-haired concubines. They’ve all fled, taking his bastard children who all share the same middle name. His cronies that used to drink with him till dawn are dead; or they are senile, jaws slack and open in the yellow air of a nursing home. Only the crows and rodents have political ambitions here, foraging for remnants in the courtyard where his only sister once rode a horse at sunset, wearing nothing but her insolence and ambition. Those were the days, say the peasants. They recall the fireworks that brillianced the skies on festival days, the morse code that spelled out the dictator’s name in rifle bursts. Once a year a black limousine with tinted windows rolls into town and the driver in sunglasses steps out to push back the rusted gates; and a younger woman leads an older one, half blind and hobbling, over the stone steps to lay a wreath of roses on a gravestone beneath the gnarled cypress trees.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 21 2014
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

What’s sure and cold reaps
excess fallen before its blade.
What’s shorn gives off the scent
of green— cut grass, tumble of weeds,
sharp tang of dandelion leaves.
What lies in twists among the rocks
serves tinder to the flame.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 20 2014
In response to Via Negativa: Remnant.

is a book of lack, of wanting, of disruption;
its index made of trails and backroads
cutting through fields of cane and red earth
to shantytowns whose roofs have the glint of well-
thumbed coins in moonlight— Here at the wharf
are all who answered summons tacked on storefronts
and windows of laundromats, advertising labor
in the bowels of the earth or on galleons
bound for kingdoms raised on the backs
of slaves. Henceforth every cube of sugar,
every pannier of traded goods is carried
first upon your shoulders: cotton, iron,
wood; hemp and paper, even the ink
with which the bill of lading’s writ.

@velveteenrabbi (Rachel Barenblat) asked for short poems of praise today on Twitter.

Here are some I wrote:

Praise be the pain
that seared us and left
as quickly as it came.

*

Praise be the cheek that burned
as if from flame,
that now warms the pillow or my hand.

*

Praise be the gaps
between whose gates
the hours are parsed.

*

Praise be the heart’s
old shawl of tears
and its kind nap.

*

Praise be the milk
of everyday desire
that we can measure into cups.

*

Praise be the moon
and its thin silver hoop
made as if new.

*

Praise be the quick-
ness of what stirs within,
flame standing up to wind.

to twirl a banded hoop
around our hips, never

learned to shake the belly
of the dance; or never coaxed
a rain of templed silences

from open lips of bells.
What brassy notes winds croon,
the blossoms know already—

We lean our heads
against the rain; eventually,
our colors stain the pavement.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 16 2014
In response to Via Negativa: Makeshift.

waves to the Buddha in you— and sometimes
it is the other way around. Mutually, we surprise
each other, peering out suddenly from behind
a potted plant at a crowded mall, careening
into a stack of trays at the cafeteria, skidding
on a sidewalk sticky with rain and pollen
so we have to help each other up. Sometimes
you’ve paid the fee at the toll before I even drive
up to the window. Today, during my lunch break,
I crouched on the front steps of a building to scrape
and pack snow into the shapes of birds: after the first
one, I made another, then another; until there were
a dozen of them lined up with pebbles or bits of dirt
for eyes. The tops of their heads glistened in the sun.
Most everyone rushed by, preoccupied with their own
worries. You were the small one that shyly ventured out
from behind your mother’s market basket to ask politely
if you could take a snow bird into your cupped hands.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 15 2014
In response to Via Negativa: Onion Snow and Picture Desk Live: The Guardian.

comes as if from out of nowhere: in church,
between epistle and homily, the hand that snakes
through darkness to fondle her breast in the crowded
cinema. Or in the office, listening to the flush
of a commode echoing in the hallway— A waterfall
that bathes the edge of the delivery table with blood
and fluid; and sometimes in the dim light of early mornings,
that gelled sheet tinted ruby which issued from between
her legs to draw on the tiled bathroom floor
the outlines of a map, country with no name.

—Luisa A. Igloria
04 14 2014
In response to Via Negativa: Searchers.