Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Malleable heart, mouth open to the sky and rain,
my discipline is to learn your one singing note—
to fish it out of the depths of a fountain like a penny
someone tossed there long ago, or like the sun
in hiding. Not so easy to twirl the simple
wooden mallet, learn how the wrist must circle
lightly around the rim; or when it comes, how to loft
its brassy bangle, let it eddy across the grass.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
I see a trace of moon yet, though morning
is fully on its way. What flutters through
the screens of bamboo as if on the strains
of a highland flute? I love those times
when the body has not completely left
what embraced it last; when coming
down the stairs it glances back at the bed
where it lay, reviewing the rousing
and the gathering up of things, the lingering
farewell; unlatching doors, going out
and walking past the jasmine bushes just
starting to put out their little stars.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Who ordered rain? Who ordered tea?
Order ham and croissants, bubbly with cheese.
Order sheets of fondant. Practice French.
Say tuileries, say pamplemousse.
Tuck your hair behind your ear, pick up
your fork, don your bib. Pick up the hot
crust with your fingers. Don’t eat like a bird.
Don’t you love ribs? Hand me a plum.
What’s that wrapped in paper?
Who heard? The leaves are buzzing
with news of the world.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Luisa A. Igloria, currently a daily contributor to Via Negativa, joins me and Kristin Berkey-Abbott as our second guest in Via Negativa’s informal Poetry Month book club for a discussion of (among other things) her next-to-most recent volume, Trill & Mordent — see response posts by Kristin, Dale Favier, and Rachel Barenblat, as well as my own.
Luisa’s presence on the web is a little diffuse, but do check out her official website (especially the page, “Why Lizards?” — a topic which Kristin and I tragically forgot to ask about), her Blogspot blog, her photo blog, and her Twitter stream, as well as her Wikipedia page and the page for ODU’s MFA Creative Writing program, which she administers.
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Theme music: “Le grand sequoia,” by Innvivo (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike licence).
At a Mexican taqueria with my ten-year-old for lunch: the walls are vivid maize and papaya slashed with green. A family of clay lizards slithers cobalt and lime up the walls: What is poetry? I ask them, because a student has just come to me confessing he has discovered, after all, his poet’s heart. For a while, he was unsure about this territory. They don’t say anything, of course; they merely suspend against the stucco, cool in the noonday haze. If a petal from the forsythia in bloom at the edge of the woods drifts into the dog dish on the porch, what is its first country? In Latin, territorium means land of jurisdiction; with roots possibly deriving from terrere, to frighten. Somewhere the forsythia erupts in arches of yellow flame. Somewhere just beyond the border of my hearing, birds spar in the language of trills. Which one is the homely sibling? There is beauty, and there is work. When the sentinels look away, there is the catch in the throat, an opening yielding words that flutter like flags of secret or undiscovered countries.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Dear hand that shakes the cup
and rolls the dice out on the table,
what is the luck of the draw today?
The trees stir their bagfuls of newly-
minted green. Somewhere, water tinkles
like silver. Even the hairs on your chest
are brushed with copper. Put on your crisp
white shirt, snap on your black bow tie, do
up your cummerbund and tails; and deal.
I never said I’d stopped playing. High winds
rearrange the clouds, having learned too
about this game of chance: your turn now
to guess which one is hiding the sun.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Dear fellow wanderer, familiar now as my twin,
more handsome than my shadow: all these years
we’ve stopped at the same wayside inn to share
quick meals, a cup of coffee, talk about our days
and where we’ve been— And yet we never linger
longer than an hour, perhaps two, before the claims
of the world descend again. But now I don’t know
which is more magnetic: that tilt of sky, the road,
plain countryside rampant with scent, tall grass
where the wind could lift our names higher.
Memory or dream, was that your kiss under my
eyelid’s flicker? I miss you even before you’ve taken
leave. This morning is full of the cries of woodpeckers—
part ululation, part rusty hinge. Your heart goes
with them, or forages among the stones with sparrows,
trusting in what it finds. You never say So long
or Au revoir, only Next time will be sweeter.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
My heart bows to the field streaked
by the sun’s rare currency this morning
to the worries that call my name
over and over like I am their favorite child
to the ridiculous kindness
of the wild turkeys’ chatter
to you who’ve called
me stranger, friend, lover
to you who’ve sung me to sleep
and kissed me in doorways
to you who’ve made space
for me on this window-ledge of words—
And you on the edge of the field, I bow to you
all in shadow, your patience outlasting us all
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Dear heart, the rain dresses all
in changeling colors: leaves that molt—
part celadon, part yellow— then turn pewter
where they drift on water and water reflects them
back as shimmer. New leaves, parchment-thin:
they’ve shaken off their flimsy tethers; and it’s not
even the season for leaving. Everything is just
beginning. Or beginning again. Every day,
the air thickens with shadow, with shape, with
odor. My hands bear the smells of mint, the stains
of verbena. The skin on my back remembers
when last it was touched. Sometimes I teach it
to grow colder. Sometimes even the smallest
flush of color reverses, like a wayward fever.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.