Via Negativa

Paired or unpaired, all in the world
yet moves forward—

A smudge of ash falls through the still air, fragile as a snowflake; nuns’
shoes of molded blue rest by the temple doorstep, inscribed
with names and messages.

Together, hundreds of fish that have perished in the rivers;
thousands of red-winged birds tumbling out of the sky.

Today, only the sun smolders on the ridgetop
between columns of oaks.

Even this not-speaking is speaking to me.
And tomorrow?

Nothing to do but steel the heart again for the crossing;
wait for the fog to clear.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.06.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Anything voiced against the wall of a whispering gallery will be audible to a listener standing diagonally on the other side. Look for a place where two pathways intersect, where a vaulted roof forms a shallow dome. In a story I once read, a man spoke just under his breath to a woman across the room. His secret kindled like a flame as though he were by her side, or inside. The sides of the cupola are blue with shadow, but the pillars have the warm tint of citrus. Marble is veined, and not always cold. You’d think a low murmur might carry faster through uninhabited rooms; but it finds its way, even in a thicker medium. Just fling a window open. Let the heavy curtains learn to babble in the wind. Listen to the low-key chattering match of nuthatches a hundred yards apart. Outside, flakes fall through the air—just enough to leave the barest fur on the ground, like a leaf’s glaucous bloom.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.05.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Three of my four music teachers were nuns. And the neighborhood referred to my very first piano teacher as the spinster— she wore dark clothing, sensible shoes, agua de colonia flor de naranja. She lived alone, with only part-time help; she never told anyone where she went in summer: “Soltera”. But I’ve always preferred this nod to solitude, to single-tude; the way impudent “l” pushes away from gossipy “o” and fakely coy “e” to bump up against “t” as if to say— So what? Years later, I’m still amazed at how much they knew: the libraries of trills and crescendos hidden underneath wimples and lace shawls; the ways they coaxed feeling from generations of wooden pupils surreptitiously kicking their legs into the piano’s soundboard. Listen to the advance of notes in this passage, they’d say: surf shirring the sand, or horses’ hooves soon coming around the bend. And then the clearing drenched in the scent of violets, which moves you inexplicably to tears. From my bedroom window, the chair backs in the garden are scrolled like treble clefs. It’s still mostly dark when the first faint pink spot appears in the clouds. I lie within that brief interval of solitude just before the day advances, slow and red. A raven croaks.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.04.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Some days the sun shines high from its balcony but not unkindly, like the hostess at a party scattering good luck coins and candy to the children gathered below. You used to cut my hair in the garden: I sat on a stool under the guava tree, with an embroidered towel fastened around my neck. Fringed across the forehead, my hair never grew past my shoulders. When the ends began to curl like upturned fingers against my shoulders, it was time to trim. The shadow of my head reflected in the kitchen window behind, or appeared on the railing. When you were done you shook the shorn locks from my nape, the flocked towel like a matador’s cape. One night you woke me from sleep and carried me on your back, walking through thigh-high grass. Where did we go? I do not remember, only that a south wind slammed the corncrib door. I open and close my hands. Sometimes I find a wispy hair, or a sweet; sometimes a coin whose currency has dulled, but not its glimmer.

—Luisa A. Igloria
01.02.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.