Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Unto every one that hath shall be given, says the sky:
and so the flowerbeds spread their skirts lined with mulch,
and the odor rose into the air, mold of wood mingled
with the fragrance of budding things. And the frost
that earlier rimmed the outlines of each blade
of grass: overtaken by rain, so many needles
running stitches into the earth.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
“…Mothers weep in the corners of those paintings
while a man, each morning, sweeps the church floor.”
~ Connie Voisine, “The Altar” by George Herbert
Every day, dirt prints on the kitchen floor,
and under the furniture, thick new pelts
of dust. Perhaps this detritus that gathers
is the sediment of dried-up tears? Taking out
the trash and pushing the bin against the far end
of the driveway, I see petite roses in bloom.
Blood-red, pressed between the fence and the water
meter. Pitimini, once I heard a woman call them:
she made floral arrangements for the church, came in
the side door of the rectory, careful to take off
her shoes and coat in the vestibule. Unrolling sheets
of newsprint on tile, she laid out ferns, divided
showy chrysanthemums from tall gladioli; and, finishing,
tucked the slighter blooms in between the hardier stems—
baby’s breath, those miniature roses. Her hands did not seem
to mind delving into their cache of sharp hooks,
guiding scratchy stems into clear vases filled with water.
I cannot remember whether she was Isabel, or Delia, or Florinda.
She came to freshen the flowers every other day, before the sun
was up. I don’t know why the ghost of her name meets me here
at the end of the driveway, pointing out the flowers.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
One summer we hiked to my grandfather’s farm. Ninety degrees in the shade, sandaled
feet stumbling in carabao dung. I did my best to look as if I knew how to live.
Five days a week I used to teach in the capital, six hours from home. Riding the midnight
bus, I saw families huddled in sleep by the underpass; how was this a way to live?
Every now and then I’ll remember something with a start, like fruit I had in childhood.
Bell-shaped macopa: red skin, cool, spongy hearts. Their taste, hard to re-live.
A cross between indigo and purple— this is the star apple’s signature. A five-
fingered flower, pulp thick and sweet, encasing the seed that might live.
The waiter brings my usual bowl of noodles in clear broth, a pair of battered shrimp.
For the umpteenth time I tell him: soup spoon, not ladle— the mouth’s hinges would give!
I love the way light moves across surfaces: the floor beneath the bay becoming
honey, water rippling itself and what holds it in. A window’s essential, to live.
In a darkened room I stretch out and practice: slow down my breathing, arrange arms
straight by my sides. Imagine how cells quit movement, the compulsion to live.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
and wind cleared the tops of trees, and passed;
the sun’s brave tribute dropped beyond the ridge.
On TV, the British laureate talked about the role
of poetry: how solitary events might meet the public
ones, disrupting the quiet of the page. The other
poet spoke of growing up in a town built from
the clanging of car parts, machinery— by the hands
of working men; and of his father’s love of Russian
novels, the ones filled with orchards and train
stations, characters fraught with the drama of too
much thinking and drink; love, desire, both, all
of the above. What is the essence of poetry?
asked the TV host. I didn’t catch their answers,
from trying to remember the scenes that led
the woman in the direction of the approaching
train, from trying to think of what the season
might have been; whether yellow leaves were
pasted to damp ground, or if she wore a coat
with a collar, because the morning was cold.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
this chorus of blossoming: some unseen bird,
calling the echo that returns, so each
joy’s doubled, brings back its twin—
Whatever name you might give it, whatever
undertone it rings, each bright ripple
shades toward deepening. I used to wonder
what it might feel like, pushed closer
toward the front of the line— place
of dubious honor: the one called on
by whatever might demand a reckoning.
My hair not all completely grey, my hems
not fully rent or frayed; my nerves, my hands
not all quite wrung. I know the days we file
away will not return; this light that pulses
like music in a cage, go under the velvet hood.
The silver bar inside will swing as gently
even then: its occupant, slight of muscle,
heart large as a sea, will dream of trinkets
thrown into the depths. O, nothing’s ever lost,
only unseen, those times the light goes out.
—Luisa A. Igloria
04 28 2012
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch and Cold mountain (44, 45, 46, 47).
It’s that paper-thin hour just after rain, and the windows are open, and fragments of sky are visible behind a haze of leaves. One by one the lights come on in houses down the way. The odors of supper fill the air: charred meat, boiled potatoes, onions. The smell of wilted greens does not carry clean, unlike the tang of mint from the garden, the neighbor’s jasmine. A voice on the radio talks of this time last year, the soldiers raiding the fugitive’s safe house, the helicopter letting them down in the cabbage patch. The burial at sea with no witnesses. And now the neighbor is working on his back gate, taking advantage of the good hour or so of remaining light. Lately, he’s taken to smoking Cuban cigars; the sweet, leaf-smoky note adds itself to what’s gathered: an odd bouquet. He’s put in a small solar panel attached to a motion-sensor light. The frame of white plastic tilts up among the ivy. I watch as he tests it and it flickers on, a warning flare of yellow.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Love is the opening of the heart, the welcoming of your beloved.
Birdling, tiny thing that bumps head-on, unwittingly, into the glass— you are not yet the announcing angel. Like you I’ve been distracted by the flicker on surfaces, yellow-green, light-dusted, feathery as eyelashes. What do you see as you stop to take a breath, as you teeter, then center, weight full on the ledge? Indentations in the stucco: imperfect, unlevel— clumsy as a new lover’s caress, yet punctuated with ardor. I lie beneath the sill, hair in disarray, attempting repose. It is either the moment before or the moment after. When you find your bearings and flit away, your shadow mimics the pulse fluttering at my throat: momentary touch, what visited there last.
—Luisa A. Igloria
04 30 2012
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch and new year’s resolutions: witness.
Whirl, I say to the wind, to the red brick wall, to the cobbled street, to nothing and no one in particular. This is the thread I’ll tie around my wrist today. Curlicue of an ear, shape of an open palm waiting to cup the notes that blow from a tuba’s lip, that croon from a fruit’s half-eaten skin. My child stirs kedgeree with a fork, fluffing the yellow rice, tapping the sides of the bowl. If only it were as easy to festoon the days with curry, with bits of egg and smoky fish. I’d dangle iridescent earrings to waylay dreams. Across the world, a friend gets up to take another shower. It’s a sweltering night in summer: an ice cube has a half-life of fizzle. Meanwhile, here, the ground is glazed with water. The downpour past, the beaches are clean as swept porches. Here come the waves, scrolling their bluegreen pages. The carriage rolls back at each interval: return, return, return.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Accordion ache, pouring from the speakers. What is it with the catch and dip, the bite, the breathless phrasing of air-not-air? Closeness of knees that dapple till dawn, that navigate the space described by feet in figure eights— this way I’m willing to be led, alternately blinded by light and shade: close enough to touch-not-touch, your hand on the small of my back; levering the notes that pitch and thrum, backlit and green.
—Luisa A. Igloria
05 02 2012
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch and small stone (84).
That scene in your favorite movie, the one where the boy has ditched his one errand and escaped through the side door into the cinema: of course he has forgotten the milk, the bread, the pullet, the eggs— the rest of the market list. The everyday sun rolls itself uphill as always, through the humid air. Let the carpenter drive nails into the wood, the baker snatch the loaves from the fire, the seamstress mend the panels that have come undone. When he slips back into the street, it’s dusk; the leaves look twice as big for their shadows— dark as olives, pits hard as hearts that have not leached their bitterness. And his mother, sails billowing like a galleon, has cuffed him on the ear: this is how they head home, one tugging, one pulling, the neighbors shaking their heads or laughing along the way. The plaza retracts to the size of a postage stamp: someday this will all have a different flavor, linger on the mouth like a memory of forbidden kisses.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.