Poem with a line from Tomaž Šalamun

Is the little bird torn apart
by a paw?
Does the dream
of flying above the white
sheet of a sea haunt it,
as it does me? In the hill
town where I was raised
though not born, once
a week, in a wooden school-
room, a nun taught us
about music and the smell
of lavender flowers. Decant
is a word that applies to sound
as it does to memory and scent.
When the bells peal at dusk
and in early morning, don’t you
see the shapes with which
they petal our heads? Tenderness
is the day-old bread we break
with our hands and dip in milk
to feed to the smallest ones,
those whose hearts have not yet
swallowed sadness whole.

Wild

Only the cloud rat knows
how to scale the tree
of heaven, whose roots
are hidden in fog

from mortal view.
And only the rough-
skinned tubers in the field
might possibly know the volume

and density of time, or how
the worms have mastered its
parceling-out. What does it matter
if it is tortoise or serpent

that grinds the wobbly
axis of the world? The sky
is portent and mystery,
the sea’s architecture

encoded in salt; the wood
is wild or so I think, only
because I have not learned
to read the wood in me.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Statement of ecopoetics and Via Negativa: Observer's Credo.

In the grey sky, a blue wound:

This entry is part 3 of 28 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2014-15

 

as if what flesh once desired
found embodiment in this opening.

Sudden as epiphany, though not
earth-shattering— A square of paper
come to light again after many months

hidden in a drawer, inked lines
of handwriting. Despite such careful
unfolding, all that language

cannot dress beyond compression:
shimmer of what called our names
even after the curtain was drawn.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Die Winterreise

Franz Schubert, “Winter Journey”

“Only now in the quiet do you feel the sharp sting
of the worm that lives within you…” ~ Wilhelm Muller

The tears you shed are hot enough
to melt the winter’s ice; the road

you’ve glimpsed through windows,
scything through the countryside,

leads farther away than thought.
What can you bring to nestle

in your two hands to last
this journey— blossom from

the once verdant linden tree?
No, leaf from flame tree, leaf

of palm that burned in the shade
of the equator and cooled

to the shape of a braided fan.
For what does the lover really know

of unrequitement? Tell this
if you can to the butterflies

that ferry their flimsy envelopes
of gold, season after season,

from coast to coast. Tell this
to the cliff swallows that wing

their way back to build mud nests
in the walls of the ruined church.

And tell this to the ones
whose forebears jumped ship

centuries ago where the waters
looked almost emerald and warm—

where they came ashore to forge their own
welcome in an inhospitable land.

Faithful

You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy…

~ Psalm 30

And you slicked the roofs with a shimmer of rain,
and the trunks of trees with the green of lichen.

Even the reeds that bent from the weight
of passing winds lent their sheen to the earth.

Who was I to send up my voice through the hollow,
who was I to run the flag of my sorrows up the pole?

Yesterday brought news of friends’ deaths.
And yesterday couriers left parcels at the door.

Every morning the small brown birds forage in the yard:
their industry steady, with no real expectation of return.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Milonga sentimental

This entry is part 2 of 28 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2014-15

 

Old heart, tired heart
counting this cold morning
the beads that gather on the grass—

Sometimes it’s hard
to keep track of how many
promises you made, fueled by hope

of their full return: each time
felt real, was real— O how you
wanted to empty your draw-

string purse of all
your savings, and spend them
on the greatest love of all.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Stealer

Oton Death Mask
Luisa A. Igloria December 20, 2014
(Oton, Iloilo; 1300-1400 A.D.)

They’ve melted and cut
a ribbon of gold

into squares they’ll beat
with mallets to the thinness

of skinThey’ll trim
around the outlines

then lift with pincers to lay
upon the face of the beloved,

pressing upon the mouth
that kissed and doubtless

was kissed warmly in return,
the bridge of the nose

that flared quietly
for the last time

then shut close
in the early dark;

and because the dark
is real now, the two

eyepieces are a blessing—
one over each shaded socket,

medallions hammered to borrow
the sun’s old fire.

*

Melted gold,
thinness of skin,
beloved kissed
quietly then shut
to borrow fire.

Landmarks

Girl with the single braid falling down her back,
boy with the limp or a stone in his shoe—

Old man dressed in his only white suit
walking up the road with his cane—

In those days one could buy
bread at dawn from the corner store,

little yeasty fistfuls to carry
like hot stones in each hand, careful

to avoid the dogs that snarled
and pulled at their chains

in unkempt yards— And on Mount
Santo Tomas, the twin cupped discs

of radars that marked the edge of a world
beyond which it did not seem possible

to venture: only the hawks could view
the sea from that height, or the sun

as it slipped from our grasp,
disappearing the end of each day.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.