Category Archives: Greatest Hits

On the edge of winter, every branch and twig
will soon grow white with rime; and every feeble
plant go under. Not one voice of protest

will we hear when sheets of snow and ice descend,
imperial in their judgment. Which makes me wonder,
in 258 when Emperor Valerian ordered the execution

of the deacon we know as St. Lawrence, what sounds
did the martyr make, roasted alive on a gridiron?
And how far beyond the olive orchards did the smell

of his charred flesh travel? What end?- asks a famous
poem: choose ice, or fire. In most cases it really
isn’t a matter of choice, even when sufficient

will’s involved. Take the graceful Isadora, who danced
barefoot, loved improvisation, and led a troupe of
young pupils called Isadorables— she died

of a broken neck when her long silk scarf
caught in the wheel of a car. What I didn’t know
was that her two young children drowned in the river

with their nanny, when their French driver forgot
to set the parking brake and the car rolled down
the Boulevard Bordon. I doubt any of them

thought this was curtains, fini, the end—
Not even the Kabuki actor who claimed immunity
to puffer-fish poison and asked the fugu chef

for four; or the American statesman who expired
from sticking a piece of whale bone through
his urinary tract to remove a blockage.

Not poor Franz Reichelt, the tailor excited to test
his brilliant invention of an overcoat parachute
(like a cloak with voluminous folds and a hood)

from the first deck of the Tour Eiffel in 1912—
captured on grainy film falling to his death below.

And certainly not the nine people killed in the London
Beer Flood of 1814, when 323,000 imperial gallons
of beer burst out of their vats at the Meux

& Company Brewery. That sudden amber sea,
flecked with foam, gushed into the streets of St.
Giles Parish: destroying homes, knocking down walls,

filling the basements where poor families lived. And they
took the brewery to court, but as in the case of hurricanes
that whirl overhead and ice that hails from the sky,

the jury simply ruled that this was an act of God.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Why can’t the Buddha vacuum underneath the sofa?
Because he has no attachments. ~ Kaspalita Thompson

One of the neighbors has a new statue of the Buddha, plunked down in her garden.
Perhaps she got it at a Black Friday sale, camped out all night, came home singing.

The Buddha teaches that we want to work free of delusion and suffering
in order to ascend, like the wren in the lilac, full-throated, singing.

I don’t know too many intimate details about his life but I do know
the Buddha was not a woman doing chores all day, much less singing.

Suffering is a pain in the ass, in the neck, in the heart mostly; since I
suffer knowing my children’s hurts, will I never know that lithe, joyous singing?

So the sacred verses speak of attachment and illusion. I know, but with all due
respect, it’s hard to feel detached when you nick yourself shaving (not singing).

Perhaps in the wilderness, in solitude, there might not be the struggle that comes of engagement: but even then, there is the noise the mind makes in its own singing.

The Buddha can’t vacuum underneath my sofa. Or under the beds. Or do the dishes.
I know, I know. If I were to detach from these tasks, they’d be easy as singing.

And one must sing rather than drone, don’t you think? Even in the bramble, that’s
what the birds are saying: the richer the song, the more complex the singing.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

First poem, last poem, I told my class tonight. Confession:
I’m always writing that dream book, wandering with its chimeras.

Wind and fog, and then just wind. Silhouettes of goldfinches
indistinguishable from leaves. Then silence like a caesura.

In the Iliad: a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted,
snake behind; goat in the middle, breath from a hot caldera.

Always I’m of more than two minds: heart ravenous as a craw,
mud-burdened as an ox. My real self, vertiginous in the sierras.

It’s late November and the birds come back in droves to Mt. Ampacao.
In darkness, hunters wait: 20 meters of nylon nets strung along the frontera.

From high up, the flush of bonfires must look like dawn; the terraces,
low stone walls against the mountainside, like streaks of dark mascara.

High-pitched cries, vague feathered bodies in the mesh. I’m not there but I
too pan the air: I want what flies, what lifts my pulleys, bones, my aura.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

“Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death, we humans live in an unwalled city.” ~ Epicurus

When the radio alarm kicks on at 7:15,
there’s an NPR interview with a writer

who’s talking about how the world
became modern— Still blurry with sleep,

I listen to a few anecdotes about burning libraries,
then some talk about the Renaissance; and of one

Poggio Bracciolini, secretary to several popes,
who found a copy of Lucretius’ On the Nature

of Things in a German monastery— which
everyone thought had been all but lost for the last

thousand plus years. This is the same Lucretius
who wrote about Epicurus, not to be confused

with the website Epicurious (“for people who love
to eat”), where on Thursday the featured recipe

was Turkey Meatballs with Cranberries and Sage.
According to the writer being interviewed,

Lucretius’ text (really a paraphrase of Epicurus)
offered readers a view of a world where the most

important human endeavor was the avoidance
of pain. The world itself was made of wobbly

atoms that jiggled and swerved through space,
sometimes colliding with each other to produce

other complex forms of matter, including humans.
In this old-new world, there are no gods, there is

no afterlife, no heaven or hell: and thus the good
philosopher and poet advise that the sager path

is the enjoyment of life and the relishing of its
pleasures. No need to fear death, as when we die,

our atoms will fizz into the ether and our selves,
as we know them now, will vanish. Why not walk

outside to the porch with a coffee mug in hand,
sit in a chair and set your feet upon the railing?

Bring a saucer of buttered toast spread with some
thick-cut marmalade or a trickle of honey, a book,

some poetry. Enjoy the pearly light while it lasts,
and the quiet: before the day and its many

distractions lays siege to whatever little rim
of pleasure you’ve drawn around this moment.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

I’ve turned the bird of my inmost longings
loose into the ether. It used to sit in a cage

of sinew and leather, its red singing
voice muffled beneath the hum

and chirr of turning gears. It visited
all the dreams I could no longer

remember— How did I know?
I knew, because it left the smallest

of teardrop shapes, tiny salt
chandeliers encrusted on the pillow.

At noon, its unsung arias begged
to be pried open: they swelled,

round-hipped and brown, like figs,
ripe; like rosewood hips of a cello.

They begged to be pried open,
marbled to liquid in a throat drenched

by sun. And so I let it be. I’ll keep
the green branch on which it roosts,

should it return. I’ll learn to live on
this door’s swinging hinge,

sustain on flimsy hope. Because I
love it so, I’ll let it take its leave of me.

—Luisa A. Igloria
11 10 2011

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.