The soft notes
of a blue-headed vireo
lure me away from my desk.
Night’s dust on my glasses
turns to a veil of gauze
in the noon-time sun.
The stench of manure
wafts up from the valley.
The vireo snatches insects from the air.
Dia de los Muertos
A goldfinch dips its beak into the fountain’s rain-filled basin. Ivy and overgrowth circle what used to be servants’ quarters; a carpet of weeds has taken over the curved driveway. Legends still abound: how in the abandoned mansion, the dictator’s ghost rakes paths along the upper hallways, banging each door open in search of dark-haired concubines. They’ve all fled, taking his bastard children who all share the same middle name. His cronies that used to drink with him till dawn are dead; or they are senile, jaws slack and open in the yellow air of a nursing home. Only the crows and rodents have political ambitions here, foraging for remnants in the courtyard where his only sister once rode a horse at sunset, wearing nothing but her insolence and ambition. Those were the days, say the peasants. They recall the fireworks that brillianced the skies on festival days, the morse code that spelled out the dictator’s name in rifle bursts. Once a year a black limousine with tinted windows rolls into town and the driver in sunglasses steps out to push back the rusted gates; and a younger woman leads an older one, half blind and hobbling, over the stone steps to lay a wreath of roses on a gravestone beneath the gnarled cypress trees.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Mowing
What’s sure and cold reaps
excess fallen before its blade.
What’s shorn gives off the scent
of green— cut grass, tumble of weeds,
sharp tang of dandelion leaves.
What lies in twists among the rocks
serves tinder to the flame.
In response to Via Negativa: Remnant.
The fog of peace
Among my workmen and then to the office, and after that dined with Sir W. Batten, and then home, where Sir W. Warren came, and I took him and Mr. Shepley and Moore with me to the Mitre, and there I cleared with Warren for the deals I bought lately for my Lord of him, and he went away, and we staid afterwards a good while and talked, and so parted, it being so foul that I could not go to Whitehall to see the Knights of the Bath made to-day, which do trouble me mightily. So home, and having staid awhile till Will came in (with whom I was vexed for staying abroad), he comes and then I went by water to my father’s, and then after supper to bed with my wife.
After the clear
war for the Lord,
foul Knights of the Bath
trouble the water.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 19 April 1661.
Sleight-of-hand
A chickadee in the garden
fills its beak with thistle down
and flies off to its nest.
I take a closer look:
that’s no down, but my own white hair
from last month’s haircut.
A spring azure butterfly
lands on the blue gravel road
and disappears.
Horse whisperer
Up with my workmen and then about 9 o’clock took horse with both the Sir Williams for Walthamstow, and there we found my Lady and her daughters all.
And a pleasant day it was, and all things else, but that my Lady was in a bad mood, which we were troubled at, and had she been noble she would not have been so with her servants, when we came thither, and this Sir W. Pen took notice of, as well as I. After dinner we all went to the Church stile, and there eat and drank, and I was as merry as I could counterfeit myself to be. Then, it raining hard, we left Sir W. Batten, and we two returned and called at Mr. — and drank some brave wine there, and then homewards again and in our way met with two country fellows upon one horse, which I did, without much ado, give the way to, but Sir W. Pen would not, but struck them and they him, and so passed away, but they giving him some high words, he went back again and struck them off their horse, in a simple fury, and without much honour, in my mind, and so came away.
Home, and I sat with him a good while talking, and then home and to bed.
A horse in a bad mood
is a hard horse, a high horse—
simple fury without much mind.
I sat with him a good while,
talking home and bed.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 18 April 1661.
Coal-heaver, yeoman, caulker: your almanac
is a book of lack, of wanting, of disruption;
its index made of trails and backroads
cutting through fields of cane and red earth
to shantytowns whose roofs have the glint of well-
thumbed coins in moonlight— Here at the wharf
are all who answered summons tacked on storefronts
and windows of laundromats, advertising labor
in the bowels of the earth or on galleons
bound for kingdoms raised on the backs
of slaves. Henceforth every cube of sugar,
every pannier of traded goods is carried
first upon your shoulders: cotton, iron,
wood; hemp and paper, even the ink
with which the bill of lading’s writ.
Remnant
An oak tree toppled
in a high wind 20 years ago
has rotted almost to nothing,
leaving just the twist of roots—
spokes of a rimless wheel,
crippled star.
As if whatever hardness
kept this clutch from holding tight
now won’t let it go.
At the beginning
of spring is a thaw or the river’s swell—
At the beginning of dusk is mauve or teal.
At the beginning of love,
a tendril or tear.
In response to Via Negativa: Rose-colored Glasses.
Rose-colored glasses
By land and saw the arches, which are now almost done and are very fine, and I saw the picture of the ships and other things this morning, set up before the East Indy House, which are well done. So to the office, and that being done I went to dinner with Sir W. Batten, and then home to my workmen, and saw them go on with great content to me. Then comes Mr. Allen of Chatham, and I took him to the Mitre and there did drink with him, and did get of him the song that pleased me so well there the other day, “Of Shitten come Shites the beginning of love.”
His daughters are to come to town to-morrow, but I know not whether I shall see them or no. That done I went to the Dolphin by appointment and there I met Sir Wms. both and Mr. Castle, and did eat a barrel of oysters and two lobsters, which I did give them, and were very merry.
Here we had great talk of Mr. Warren’s being knighted by the King, and Sir W. B. seemed to be very much incensed against him.
So home.
I saw the ships set off
at the beginning of love
but I know not
whether I shall see
a dolphin.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 17 April 1661.