Someone— who?— years ago
traced the lines on my palm to read
by candle-glow what the crossways meant,
the breaks, faint spiderwebbing wrapped
around the edges of my hand to say
how many children I would have,
how many loves, how many times
the heart would bend to the swallowtail’s
random dance. What coins changed
hands, what turn of fortune spilled
its fickle evidence of numbers
on the table? Some years are silken
threads that loosen quickly from flimsy
moorings; some years are patient
caterpillars inching up the rough-barked,
bunioned trees— Any day now a god
might unfurl its wings to rend the canopy;
any day now, that radiant and elusive life.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Always a Story
- Landscape with Sudden Rain, Wet Blooms, and a Van Eyck Painting
- Letter to Implacable Things
- Landscape, with Cave and Lovers
- Miniatures
- Letter to Self, Somewhere Other than Here
- Ghazal with a Few Variations
- Letter to Silence
- Landscape, with Returning Things
- Postcard to Grey
- Not Yet There
- Letter to the Street Where I Grew Up (City Camp Alley, Baguio City)
- Between
- Parable of Sound
- Letter to Providence
- Glint
- The Beloved Asks
- Letter to Longing
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Twenty Questions
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Interlude
- Villanelle of the Red Maple
- Letter to Leaving or Staying
- Salutation
- Letter to Love
- Letter to Fortune
- Territories
- Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
- Dear season of hesitant but clearing light,
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Singing Bowl
- [temporarily removed by author]
- Risen
- Refrain
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear heart, I take up my tasks again:
- Foretelling
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Risk
- Vocalise
- Tremolo
- Interior Landscape, with Roman Shades and Lovers
- Bird Looking One Way, Then Another
- Gypsy Heart
- Landscape with Carillon
- Letter to Ardor
- Landscape, with Salt and Rain at Dawn
- Marks
- Landscape, with Sunlight and Bits of Clay
- Slaying the Beast
- Measures
- In a Hotel Lobby, near Midnight
- Landscape with Shades of Red
- Between the Acts
- Letter to Duty
- Letter to Nostalgia
- You
- Song of Work
- Balm
- Landscape, with Wind and Tulip Tree
- From the Leaves of the Night Notebook
- Letter to What Must be Borne
- Redolence
- Letter to Myself, Reading a Letter
- Night-leaf Tarot
- Trauermantel
- Aubade, with Sparrow
- Reverie
- Mineral Song
- Layers
- Prayer
- Proof
- Landscape as Elegy for the Unspent
- Vespertine
‘how many times
the heart would bend to the swallowtail’s
random dance’
Oh my!
The arm and thread from the original seems to translate readily to palm and lines, but the use you made of the swallowtail really surprised me!
I hold my hand over my heart/ because I know it knows no rest:/ it does not want to mourn what/ passes from this life, just yet.—From “Trauermantel” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 05-28-11
Any day now a god /might unfurl its wings to rend the canopy;/any day now, that radiant and elusive life.—From “Foretelling” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 05-29-11
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
It alights on the most unlikely places
when it is ready to unload its augury:
a herald that answers to no postmaster.
Did it touch your face before perching
on your head preening like a silken bow?
Fear not, but beware its noblesse oblige:
Whom the gods want to destroy, they
first caress, a beau geste for its fondest,
most innocent, most willing sacrifice.
Like the heart that knows no rest,
the mourning papillon flits from leaf
to welcoming petals ready with nectar.
Though it comes bearing sweetness
for its bounden message, it drops its
wings to let the doleful colour show
and flies out of reach and rancour, out
now into the cusp of wind and fire, out
of grace, out into the world of Tiresias
blinded but must prophesy what passes
from this life, all loves and lovers, gone
but never let loose, ever, not now, not yet.
For any day now, the heart that bent
to the swallowtail’s random dance,
would find its elusive life full of radiance.
—Albert B. Casuga
05-30-31