Tag: Luisa A. Igloria

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Night Heron, Ascending

This entry is part 7 of 47 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2012

Through the window by my desk, I see a poem light in the branches
of a tree. It roosts awhile, then leaves— Night heron, ascending.

My friend thinks it an omen for something good and rare. I regard the question
mark of its neck and back, its feathered cap streaked with pale saffron, ascending.

Last season’s big storm flung a nest with young herons to the ground.
Perhaps this is one of them, out of the rhododendrons ascending.

In The Conference of The Birds, what fate befalls it as the flock undertakes
the journey? A blur past oak, ash, and willow; past reddened crags, ascending.

From that height, boats are specks on the water, and we, even smaller.
Which dark craft at the river’s mouth is Charon’s, swiftly descending?

In this summer light, some things look struck by gold: mythic, emblematic.
Portentous spirit, wings outlined with neon— tell me of ascending.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Ghazal, On the Fullness of Time

“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him…” ~ Ephesians 1:10

When the reedy voices of need and jealousy, resentfulness and greed
start up, O give me the strength to imagine the fullness of time.

What is it like, in such amplitude of ease? Will I finally be allowed to wander
in the vineyards, glass in hand, toasting the sheen of the fullness of time?

And having quaffed my first one, will there be more from which it came, streams
of vino pouring like water from a machine dispensing the fullness of time?

Look, you know I’ve paid my dues, didn’t take shortcuts, scrubbed the decks not just
once but several times, cleaned the latrines for a chance at the fullness of time.

And I hate to find fault, but I’ve had it with this culture of complaint, the misplaced
sense of noblesse oblige, of privilege— Do the mean also get their fullness of time?

Yeah, yeah— Do your best. Turn the other cheek. Sacrifice. Love conquers all. So how come I don’t get to lie in the sun in Belize, do the scene in Paris, in the fullness of time?

Summer is long and days grow short. Everyone comes and goes. Meanwhile I throttle
the engine, stop and start, clean my windscreen; I keep aiming for the fullness of time.

 

In response to Via Negativa.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Ghazal, Between the Lines

This entry is part 5 of 47 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2012

The gap, the space, the state of neither here nor there, the hazy interval that
hasn’t quite revealed what it contains: it makes you want to read between the lines.

A bridge suspends across two spans of earth: a flimsy thing, woven of rope and slats
that rattle when we walk. We do not need to peer too closely between these lines.

Space yawns beneath, drops deep from blue into yet more blue. Behind, perhaps
the generosity of sand; ahead, the unparsed trees to read between the lines.

But I grow weary of traveling to and fro, of leveling the way then finding it un-
tenable when I’ve turned around. Hard work: deciphering between the lines.

How hard is it to understand what the heart really wants? The body’s feathered
with nostalgic veins resembling lines. Listen hard, read between each line.

No, the butterfly exploring your palm with its proboscis isn’t necessarily
a symbol for anything else. You cannot read too much between the lines.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Ghazal, with Cow Burial

“There are only 31 horse burials in Britain and they are all with men.”

Out of a pit, they’ve found a woman’s bones— whittled by time,
beaded with dust, clutching the ambered remains of a cow.

Was she matriarch, widow, wife? Did she die struck by illness or blight?
Archeologists say her wealth and status are proven by this cow.

Some days, I quip to friends and family that my name might as well be
Bob (short for Beast of Burden): but, life’s yoke being heavier than a cow,

would I really want to take it with me? In Chinese burials, the dead
(their spirits, that is) are ferried to the afterlife: not on cows

but in paper limousines inked with symbols for wealth; stuffed with coins, bills,
sweets, cigars, what one liked here enough to take to there; but not a cow—

In the winding Cordilleras I call home, the dead are neatly tucked among
the hills, with jars of betel nut and agate beads— never with a cow.

And a friend writes to remind me: in Hindu myth, should the population
be in danger, they’ll save the women, children, and their cows.

The cow that in this life was cow, does it remain the same? Does it dream
of feathered grass in the fields, of gnats, the low symphony of fellow cows

chewing their cud? They poke at beetles the color of jewels
—embellishment on face plates of sleeping mummies. The cow

as sacrifice, as plenty, as months of food and fat and solid warmth.
And the woman: how was she loved, missed, valued more than cow?

 

In response to Cow and woman found ... in Anglo-Saxon Dig.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Names, Words, Names

Some words are only names, but some
are grenades of color— How else to explain
the corrosive red of dragonfruit, tart

and scaly pucker in each syllable of rattan,
pale, warning-light diminutions of the loquat,
lightning fire asleep but rousable in cobalt,

fermenting sweetness in ambrosia (and oh,
Ambrosia, weren’t you the long-legged girl
every boy on the street fell in love with

and could not wait to date)? And some names
are not merely words but decoys popping up
on the shore of bland expectation,

paint a little off, or streaking, or applied
to all the wrong places— For instance,
the students tonight doing freewrites

on language, begin to share: one says,
The guy I work out with at the gym
is Evian; his sister is Dasani, and all

his other siblings are named after
bottled water. And the student
whose mother works as a nurse

at a clinic pipes up, Once there was
a girl who pronounced her name like this:
Shi’thay-ed; Shi’thay-ed, but on the form

it read “Shithead.” And the class by now
has burst into uncontrollable farts
of laughter. And all the rest

of the evening they shake their heads
and ask, Really? Who names their child
Shithead, Shi’thay-ed, Shithead?

 

In response to Via Negativa, Remembering Rio.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Rest Stop

This entry is part 3 of 47 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2012

Dear one, you in that slouchy, shoulder-baring top and skimpy shorts, me in my work shirt and jeans— here we are at a pause, hitch-hiking through the Pacific coastline of our lives. I glance in your direction every now and then to watch the nonchalant way you hold up a thumb in that universal gesture that says I don’t care, just get me outta here. I can understand that, because even at my age, there are times I don’t know where I want to be either; or anymore. Some dreams still come back from a similar time in my youth: me sweating in sheets and tossing in bed, or wanting to swing an arm out in anger but finding that I can’t move. Or working the throat toward a catapult of sound, only to discover my mouth taped shut. Oh I wanted so bad to get to that cool and clear, that threshold where the woods stopped and the rest of the vibrant world began. To tell you the truth, I can hardly remember how I got here. Only that for every sonofabitch, there have been more that were kind; for every wrong turn, there have been way stations with at least a bench or a working bathroom, a vending machine. And all this walking and wandering has made me tired, but let me not forget to say thank you—even to whatever might have led me here by mistake.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Passing Storm

Courage and fear, those alternating currents. Like whips of lightning that stripe sheets of rain, the boom of close-by thunder. A rattly noise on all the roofs and windows: and we realize it’s hailing— I imagine chunks of ice like dice rolled in a cup, bouncing on the pavement, into the ditch lined with weeds. It’s hard to see on the road, through rain’s white noise and the Friday evening rush: everyone wants to get home, to flee to somewhere dry and dim, backlit by tea lights and amber-colored bottles of beer. Somewhere, a siren. A police car flashes its emergency lights every few seconds, steering motorists away from the flooded underpass. Umbrellas are no match for the wind. Secretaries from the engineering building wade into the flooded street, their high-heeled sandals tucked into their lunch bags. Be careful, someone yells out a window. Are you almost here? texts my friend. It may take a while, I say. We’ll get there when we get there. Nothing to do but ride this out, observe: we’re here, we’re here, still here.

 

In response to small stone (103).

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Preces

This entry is part 2 of 47 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2012

How do you do it, I want to ask the mothers gathered at the table, nearly identical in silk hose, cool, marbled jewels at their throats— but I would probably be accused of being over-earnest, of making too much out of nothing. The secret’s in the shortening, someone offers. Don’t overwork it, says another; have some more pie, the blueberries are especially sweet this season. Who notices the butterfly that seems to keep changing sizes, that turns out to be two butterflies among the ivy? Someone is delighted. Someone says How lovely, how sort of like a tortoise-shell hair ornament! I need a miracle, or something close to one; if this is a sign, that one wing falling away to unmask the other, I’m willing to grasp at it. I’ll bow my head, stand very still and wait for the slightest dusting of pollen on my lashes. I’ll keep wakeful watch through the night, whisper shreds of prayers I can still remember. You may not hear them, but I want to believe they’re there: imperceptible currents traced by a banded wing, orange and red against a field of dark black.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.