In a photograph, a woman sits on her haunches
amid a sea of debris. Her feet are bare. A pair of red
rain boots caked with mud perches neatly at her side,
the way they might rest in a parlor. The sky is the color
of rain, the color of heaving things: water a wall
surging over highways, toppling cars and beams
and lorries. The past tense is already active here—
fields have lost their stenciled borders; there’s little left
to read in maps. Above the burning cities, snowflakes
scatter, wandering back and forth like spirits. I watch
one explode against the branch of a dead cherry.
Croak of a raven making the shape of a thousand names.
—Luisa A. Igloria
03 14 2011
In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.
A very moving elegy, Luisa. Something like this was in the back of my mind when I watched those scattered snowflakes this morning; thanks for fleshing that vision out.
“the color of heaving things,” that’s an indelible phrase. Beautiful, again, Luisa.
How do you do it, Luisa? Your poems all speak with such empathy. Thank you for the stirring.