Author: Luisa A. Igloria

“Adoro te devote, latens Deitas…” ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Behind every story, a sympathy
that might need chiseling
in order to be seen.

And the daily hymn
that birds sing as they forage:
Does anything belong to me?

Take me in the cold and show me how
the hive sleeps: how it can bear the rumor
of gold cells ticking in the walls.

Driving through an unfamiliar neighborhood,
I remarked on how almost every house had doors
and windows with security grilles—

And I remembered one Saturday long ago:
me a child just taken out of the bath,
my mother vigorously toweling

my hair; the bedroom door ajar, the sounds
beyond of carpenters we’d hired, repairing
the fence and kitchen floor— Then,

an unfamiliar body, blur moving with speed,
knife in hand, through the outer hall:
commotion in the yard, incredulous

rain of nails, clatter of sawhorses, sharp-
punctured cries— Was that the sound of a fist
breaking a jaw? And I was gathered up

as my mother ran, though she ran toward
and not away, her voice a skillet coming down
hard, commanding a stop to whatever madness

had erupted in our midst. I can’t remember
exactly now if it had to do with the foreman’s
gambling debts, some drunken dalliance

or other vile offense. But clasped in the damp
towel to her heaving chest, I felt the walls
grow permeable: shells of spackled paper.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Distinct from the warm steam
in the shower: I can feel my breath.

*

Almost miraculous: how I never have to water
the orchid that hangs from the window-frame.

*

On our quiet street, dozens of leaf bags rest by the curb.
Rain of dry pine needles every time the wind gusts.

*

A Christmas tree on its side on the corner. Four
houses down, a string of lights kept on the porch all year.

*

My neighbor gets up at 4 to go to work at 5.
In the dark, orange glow of the check engine light.

*

I unwrap a small square of brittle: salty nut meat; then,
surprise of rosemary leaf entombed in the clear molasses.

*

After several bad connections and failed tries, finally
I talk with my 81 year old mother on the phone.

*

She is losing her hearing, but she says one thing over and over:
Don’t give up on anyone. Love your family. I want to kiss your face.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Have you returned with a message
from the dead just for today?

What does it mean if you have managed to free
the poplar leaf caught in the mirror?

What does it mean that the birds
have risen from the ashes and flown away?

Bang the lids of the iron pots together
and jump for joy in the yard.

It is time to fling wide the windows
to the bracing air of midnight.

It is time to open every drawer and watch
the sad ghosts of the old year disappear.

In response to Via Negativa: Stranger here myself.

Here we are again, at the end of the loop—
only it’s not the same place as last year on the loop;
perhaps a notch higher, but nevertheless the loop
we always think is endless at the start of the loop
is coasting to a finish— so twirl the looped
ribbon at the end of a stick, light the looped
fireworks then duck, dance with your arm looped
around the waist of the one whose life is now looped
in the loop of your own; it’s cold and leaves loop
in slow spirals to the ground, or float like a sloop
through water that looks like it’s spangled and looped
in ribbons of light— Infinity’s the name of the loop
that takes us away then brings us again to the end of the loop—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

proclaimed the text, after the movie
credits rolled and the curtains

draped back over the screen— sheer
enough though, so one could still see

the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion as it opened
its golden mouth and roared beneath the motto

“Ars Gratia Artis,” a Latin phrase
which translates as “Art for art’s sake”—

Meaning, whatever story has just brought you
to the precipice of rapture or tears

has nothing, supposedly, to do with your own life,
or life in general. For it’s just life after all,

unlike in the movies: messy, unscripted,
thorny, unpredictable, unlikely

to arrive at clear resolution; drab,
even, against heightened technicolor,

a soaring musical soundtrack, the artful
montage of moments. Whereas in life,

mostly, when something does come to an end,
it is The End— the money running out

for rent, for school, for the emergency
operation; end of the affair, the marriage;

goodbye at the end of the pier,
the drunk sailors leaving with no

further thought of their one-night stand…
And no one wants to think anymore

of the foetid stench in the streets, of waifs
wandering at dawn with garlands of flowers

and outstretched palms, or the transgender found
in a hotel room with her head in the toilet bowl.

In response to Via Negativa: End of the month.

In response to Via Negativa: Magnificat.

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.

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.