All night the beggar queen dreams
on her throne of words, striking
match head after match head to flush
the dawn sky salmon. I watched it
change color that way only once, sleeping
on a beach in a borrowed blanket.
Sandpipers and gulls left imprints
on wet sand. Above, birds flew
ahead of a curtain of coming rain.
The air smelled of sulphur,
of phosphorus, of gunpowder—
residue of some resplendent
catastrophe, as if a column of fire
or a city were burning somewhere;
as if a fire-stealer were returning
to the world red-handed. Glowing baton
in each hand, mouth full of knowledge:
heart an ember oblivious to danger.
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
- Private: Letter, Fumbling Around in the Dark Again
- 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
- Private: Letter to Sameness and Variation
- 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
- Fire-stealer
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear heart, I take up my tasks again:
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Risk
- Vocalise
- Tremolo
- Interior Landscape, with Roman Shades and Lovers
- Bird Looking One Way, Then Another
- Gypsy Heart
- Like the Warbler
- 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
- Foretelling
- Aubade, with Sparrow
- Reverie
- Mineral Song
- Layers
Oh my, yes. And good job working in the tagline to Marly’s blog!
Hey Luisa and Dave–
What a frolic! Oh, I am honored!
In fact, thoroughly tickled! I shall go to bed right now and dream about it till 6 a.m., when the cudgel of reality lowers its boom.
Glowing baton/ in each hand, mouth full of knowledge:/ heart an ember oblivious to danger.
APOLLO DESCENDING
It is a fiery birthing: after the lonely call
of the last gull that darts after the last
glow of sundown; after the sandpiper’s
song peters out to a lost bird’s chirp;
after all the images have crept under
these breakwater boulders to surface
perhaps as frenzied dancers casting
shadows swaying underneath this tent,
this caravanserai of dreams; after this,
on a throne of palaver, a fire-bearer
lights the torches that fence us all in.
Like Apollo’s captives, we cup flames
in our palms and sing polyglot hymns
to the beauty of words while we shower
our paths with pellets of fire, as we crown
the beggar queen with a flaming nosegay.
—Albert B. Casuga
06-08-11