There is so much I did not know.
For every sapling of silver birch, flowering cherry,
elder, chaste tree and mountain ash—
trees of a darker timber: red stinkwood,
yellow wood, Mukui and Meru oak; mahogany,
Flame kurrajong and cigar cassia.
At the kitchen table over tea and cookies,
my friend visiting from Kenya tells me
of local witchcraft and sorcery.
In the coastal towns of Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale
and Malindi, a number of fishermen will weave
the hair from albinos into their fishing nets,
believing their golden glimmer will bring
a bigger catch. All the children with bodies
the sun has dusted with its chalk
have gone into hiding, all the men
and women. Their legs and arms are
amulets, their fingers and ears, genitals.
Backlit by the sun, a hoarfrosted forest
glitters with captured ice. I read
news stories of miners
who quarter the limbs of the kidnapped
and bury them like magic stones
to make gold grow.
The crow flies over trails, following
a running stitch of red.
—Luisa A. Igloria
02 23 2011
In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Stay
- “Findings”: the missing Morning Porch poems
- Two more Morning Porch poems from Luisa Igloria and a comment on free culture
- What Leaf
- With winter’s gift of unimpeded sight,
- Aubade, with Feathers
- Scherenschnitte
- Solstice
- Heart and Shadow
- “The sudden spasm of wings”
- “Before sight, sound—“
- Four Morning Porch poems
- “Up and down the street, the neighbors…”
- Memento Mori
- “The streets are lined with garbage bins…”
- “Soon the old year must join…”
- Speaking of __
- Postcard
- Wake
- Despedida de Soltera
- Filament
- “Paired or unpaired, all in the world…”
- Vertices
- Graupel
- Auguries
- Closer
- Menage
- Preludium
- Instructions
- Consonance
- Rosary
- Forager
- Photogram
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Landscape, With Darkness and Hare
- Ghazal of the Dark Water
- Landscape, with Cardinal and Earring
- Ellipsis
- Intention
- One Day, That Room
- Landscape, with Small Flakes and Far-off Bandoneón
- Sentence
- Spun
- Intercession
- Recurrence
- Landscape, with an End and a Beginning
- Waking
- Thaw
- Spell
- Dim Sun, Dim Sum
- Vanishing Point
- Monday Landscape, with Clocks Borrowed from Dali
- “Last night’s wet snow…”
- Ephemera
- Landscape, with Water Fountain, Small Clouds and Endless Lyric
- What She Wants
- Landscape, with Mockingbird and Ripe Figs
- Letter to Arrythmia
- Love Poem with Skull and Candy Valentines
- Letter to Affliction
- Letter to Levity
- Thaw
- Letter to Rubbermaid and Tupperware
- Letter to Spam
- Nave
- Little Waking Song
- Imminence
- Letter to Water
- Letter to Green
- Meditation on a Seam
- No Two
- Ghazal of Burgeoning Things
- Deseo
- Petition for Something Other than White
- Letter to the Hungry Ghosts
Hey, Dave, isn’t it time for Festival of the Trees? This might be a good one to fire off… Though it departs from them, of course.
I was thinking about that. It’s a closer fit than some of the things that get submitted to the FOTT.
Luisa, am still liking the Dave-Luisa dance!