When the man who cuts our grass every two
or three weeks comes by this afternoon,
he turns off his riding lawn mower
to chat. I'm not sure what prompts this
pause for conversation—perhaps the nearly
100-degree heat, or just because
whatever's on the brain has a way
of spilling out of the mouth, seeking
a listening. And that's how I come
to learn about his brother's death.
There's one in every family: oveja
negra notoria. You know how it is,
Joel says. All of us siblings cut
from the same cloth, and yet one of us
somehow takes some kind of wrong turn
and never reaches their full potential.
And yet this brother, no matter how down
on luck or perpetually drowned in his cups,
never lacked for friends. The way Joel
tells it, even people he met for the first
time acted almost like they knew him
from another life. Nearly seven
hundred people went to my brother's funeral,
says Joel, shaking his head. I've known
a few people like that too: old souls,
washing up here again among us after
having traveled so long. Each time, still
trying to figure out how to do it—how
to live this life, how to make amends,
perhaps do it better next time. Just like
all these plots where grasses grow
back, tall and thick and green, no matter
how many times the blade mows them down.
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) is Co-Winner of the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition in Poetry for her manuscript Maps for Migrants and Ghosts, forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press in fall 2020. She is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of What is Left of Wings, I Ask (2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize, selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey); Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She is a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University which she directed from 2009-2015. In 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Distinguished Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, knits, hand-binds books, and listens to tango music.
Thank you for the lovely poem. I too am One of Joel’s siblings. I understand, also, that despite our set backs, our spirit seeks its destination. It could be with new or old friends, or someone you meet on the street. Please continue your art/love. We need it. Thank you, again.
Javier, thank you for the grace of your words.