Sun Bird
You fill a hole in my life
with a strange unfamiliar
super glue
that bonds me to you
ties unseen unknown
bind us and stop me
from being alone
we neither touch
nor hug
yet a secret stream
links us joining us
mind to mind
manna from heaven
descends on the desert
more powerful
than mortal love
Two natural phenomena affected Monte Albán and its population. The first was drought and the dried earth with its brown and yellow tinges is clearly visible in these photos. The second natural problem came from earthquakes, for this is indeed an earthquake zone with active volcanoes causing tremors at regular intervals. The temples, even today, sometimes need repairing as earthquakes have been known to destroy even the reconstructed temples.
In fact, the abandonment of Monte Albán may well have been caused by an earthquake that cracked the enormous natural cistern in which the population’s water supply was stored.
The Danzantes are strange, grimacing characters that have been carved into prisons of stone. They may be captured warriors awaiting sacrifice or the chieftains of conquered tribes humiliated, perhaps tortured, and then flash frozen into stone photographs where for centuries they have danced out their torment. Whoever and whatever they may be, they still dance on Monte Albán.
My poem, The Dancers and the Dance, captures a different form of dancing. It is taken from my book Sun and Moon: Poems from Oaxaca (2000) and contains echoes of the vibrant folkloric culture that thrives to this day both in the city of Oaxaca and in the Oaxaca Valley. Here, traditions are remembered and relived. Each year, on the Day of the Dead, for example, families place food and drink alongside photos of the dearly departed on altars inside their houses and their doors are thrown open to welcome their deceased family members as they return along the marigold paths that lead to their former homes.
The Dancer and the Dance
1
she comes here to dance for me
only for me does she dress this way
she shows me her dreams
unfolding them one by one
silk and cotton garments
drawn fresh from her scented closet
thin copper bracelets
carved wooden mask
only her eyes reveal
subversive flesh and blood
2
she orchestrates her story
skin drum
rattle of seeds in a sun-dried pod
single violin string
stretched across an armadillo’s shell
I too am tense like an instrument
waiting to be played
the bones of my love
reach out towards her
3
when she makes her music
familiar spirits return to the earth
dancing in a sash of moonlight
she recreates an ancient spell
gold letters plucked from dark scrolls
no wands no words
just water’s purity
flicked fresh
across lips and face
she binds me with the string of notes
she undoes with her hair
our bodies form an open altar
we worship with mysterious offerings
drawn from wells set deep within us
4
Rain falls from the sky
Moon turns his face away
suddenly in darkened alleys
clouds hold hands and dance
dense streamers of light
dangle from street lamps
shadows remember their forgotten steps
gently she draws me to her
I try to follow
frail whirlpools of withered leaves
fragment weak sunshine
in light’s watery pool
5
her magic grows
I take my first step
an unmapped journey
into desert space
we move to old rhythms
across moon flecked clouds
raindrops fall more slowly
faltering drum beat
diminishing water
6
high above us
the ghost of a melody
shaking its head
wringing its hands
we return at last
to light and air
the moon’s vacant face
scowls in an empty field
someone has plucked the stars
one by one
and threaded them like a chain of daisies
now there are no sky flowers
to adorn the night
7
noche de rábanos
someone has taken a knife
and peeled an enormous radish
this cartoon moon face
this full skull hanging from nothing
this lantern lighting from above
now my lover sculpts time
and space
into small chunks
each sacrifice
a jewel between her fingers
I pin to my chest
three small notes
and a skeleton of words
8
inside my dancing head
the fires have gone out
without her hands to guide me
my feet have turned clumsy
scars layer my wrists and ankles
star crossed bindings
cutting against the grain
I gather a harvest of stars
she holds them in her eyes
her fingers are grasshoppers
making love in my hair
when she kisses my fingernails
one by one
we both know our bodies
will never be the same
9
together we weave a slender cage
she cuts out my heart with her tongue
placing it on an altar inside the bars
she locks the tiny door
a silvery key wrought from moonstone
my fluttering heart grows miniature wings
next time the door is opened
my wings will fly me to her lips
my heart is a caged bird on a tiny perch
it chirrups a love song
its image in the mirror answers back
breathless it scrapes its wings on the moon
its body striving upwards to the stars
10
on Monte Albán the danzantes
sway to soft music
their shadows dance in and on stone
as they have danced for centuries
wind rustles the grass
moon casts sharp shapes
darkness ascends the temple steps
huge fingers grasping upwards
an owl’s feathers clutching at the skies
at dawn tomorrow
the sun will rise beneath our feet
we will squint down on its majesty
we will pluck the ripeness of its orange
in our outstretched hands
11
our last night together
I pluck a blossom from the tulipán tree
a final offering of my love
she gives it back
I place it in the pocket of flesh
where I once kept my heart
tomorrow when the flower breaks
it will stain my shirt
a damp splash of blood
no longer running in my veins
the scent of our happiness
will cling forever to my fingers
Free Spirit
I stare at nothing
and nothing do I see
nothingness is the state for me
for me anonymity
no name no form
and shapeless I will be
shapeless yes hopeless no
for this I know – eternity
has sown its seeds in me
ashes to ashes dust to dust
my spirit will eternal be
my death will set it free
free to fly – free to roam
free to find my forever home
Comment:
Moo is bring stroppy. He has started painting again, but he refuses to sign his paintings. “Three little letters,” I told him. I won’t tell you what he told me to do. little bit embarrassing, and I am not that flexible in my old age.
Never mind. When nobody was looking, I promised him one of KTJ’s world famous Peanut Butter Balls. Well, they would be world famous if I let them out of my fridge in Island View, and I certainly don’t intend doing that. Then I asked him for a title and he went as crazy as Cuckoo Spit. He told me he was Going Bodmin Again, just like in Doc Martin. I told him he wasn’t in Doc Martin. “How do you know,” he asked, “you always fall asleep in front of the telly.”
He thinks he was hugging that great big squirrel, as mad as a hatter, as crazy as a loon, as loony as a man in a loony bin. So, why does a lunatic sleep under the bed. Answer – because he’s a little potty of course.
Does anybody read this junk I write? I can’t imagine that they would. However, if you are reading it, please send a recipe for maple fudge by mule train via the lower Andes. I think it is quicker than snail mail, or the dog sled via the North Pole. Every time a dog lies down for a rest, those sleds get a flat tire.
Swings
They told me that one day
my feet would be up in the air,
and the next they would be stuck
on the ground.
A roundabout, they said,
a merry-go-round,
with all the fun of whatever fair
happens to be around that day.
Someone, not me, flicks a switch,
music plays, the carousel horses
move up and down, slowly at first,
then faster and faster as day, music,
and horses all gather pace.
There are no reins. If there were,
I would heave those horses
back towards whatever reality I left.
But what is reality now?
These hot flashes that warm my flesh?
Those cold flushes that make me shiver,
then turn up the heat
until I am sweating again?
Shadows grow. I pull less strongly
on the swing boat’s ropes.
My journey slows. The showman
raises the bar beneath the wooden hull.
Wish it or not, my time is nearly up.
With a bumpety-thump,
my journey grinds
to its inevitable end.
Comment
Moo is having a bad hair day. Somebody glued all his paint brushes together and he hasn’t painted anything for a long time. The painting above dates back to April. Oh dear. Poor Moo. I shall shed a little tear for him, when he is not looking. I wouldn’t want him to know I care, so please don’t tell him. I wish I could unclog his paint brushed for him. but I am not very good at that sort of thing. In fact, I don’t think I am particularly good at anything right now.
Everyday is an adventure now. Every day something happens. Sometimes for the better, more often for the worse. Like a knocked my morning cup of coffee over. Like I burned the toast and the fire alarm went off. Like I squeezed the orange and the juice went all over the table cloth to join the wine stains that I made when I reached for the salt and I knocked that over s well. And don’t let’s talk about filling my fountain pens and leaking ink everywhere.
So – look on the bright side of things. Every cloud has a silver lining. Hooray. Down every rabbit hole, there is a little rabbit. Dig deep and you will find it. Or not. If not, then find another rabbit hole or buy your own rabbit, stuff it down the hole, then dig it out again.
Never surrender. Never give up hope. And look – there’s a rabbit, just going down it’s rabbit hole. Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a little while, as soon as I have caught it. Welsh recipe for rabbit pie – “First, catch your rabbit.” And watch out for those fleas. “Little bunnies have tiny fleas upon their backs to bite them. And lesser fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum.”
My AI investigation tells me that Augustus De Morgan (1872): The 19th-century mathematician popularized the rhyming couplet known as Siphonaptera (the biological order of fleas):
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
Alebrijes step out from dried wood and stand in the shower of paint that falls from the brush’s tip. Yellow flash of lightning, pointillistic rain, garish colors that mirror those of the códices. The carvings take the form of fantasy figures, anthropomorphic animals, and mythological creatures.
Sometimes one individual selects the wood, carves it, then covers it in paint. Occasionally an entire family takes part in the work of making the alebrije. One person collects the wood and prepares it for carving. Another carves and sands it. A third works on the undercoat, and a fourth applies the final patterns of paint.
The great debate: does the form in the wood
reveal itself to the carver
or do the carvers impose their own visions on the wood? In the case of the team, do the family members debate and come to a joint conclusion?
These thoughts, exchanged with wood-carvers in Oaxaca, all with different opinions, have led to a series of interesting conversations. What exactly is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we, as artists, impose it upon our creations? Or do we merely observe and watch as new ideas float to the surface of our minds? How does the creative mind really function? And, by extension, how much of the sub-conscious creative sequence can be placed into words?
Alebrijes
Are they half-grasped dreams
that wake, wide eyed, to a new day’s sun?
Or are they alive and thriving
when they fall from the tree?
Does the carver fish their color and shape
from his own interior sea,
or does he watch and wait for the spirit
to emerge from its wooden cocoon
to be reborn in a fiery block of color?
Daybreak:
in a secluded corner of my waking mind,
my neighbor’s dog greets the dawn with sparks
of bright colors born from his bark.
My waking dream: dark angels with butterfly bodies,
their inverted wings spread over my head to keep me warm.
In the town square, the local artist plucks dreams
from my head and paints them on carved wood.
Or is this the true source of inspiration?
Poema de Amor / Love Poem
Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Mitla is a sacred burial place in the Oaxaca Valley.
The caves in the hills above the town
are said to lead directly to an underworld from which demons and devils emerge at night and by means of which humans can communicate with the souls of the dead. Mitla, in fact, is often called the city of the dead.
Legend has it that if you embrace a certain magic column in the Palace at Mitla,
the time left for you to live can be measured by the distance
between your fingers as they reach round the pillar and almost touch.
The pillar, they say, grows and shrinks according to the length of the seeker’s life. Petrus, a rock, in Latin, evolves into piedra,
a rock or stone in Spanish: upon this rock will I build my church.
1
We walk on tiptoe round the garden
peeling free the sunlight cloud by cloud
sometimes the heart is a sacrifice of feathers
bound with blood to an ornate altar
petrus
this rock cold against my chest
piedra
centuries of glyphs alive in your face
if our arms meet round these all too human columns
what will become of us?
2
beneath your skin the woad lies as blue as this evening sky
yellow light bends low in the fields below us
each darkened pool a warrior fallen beneath the scythe
the moon paints a delicate circle
its great round open eye stands out
above the rooftops
tonight it bears an eye lid carved from cloud
our teeth are diadems of whiteness
we tie shadows to our heels
and dance in triumph through street and square
3
daylight bends itself round rock and turns into shadow
we flourish in blocks of fire
dreaming new selves from roots and branches
we clasp each resurrection with greedy fingers
will the moon rise again tonight and will we watch?
dark angel bodies with butterfly wings
our shadows have eloped together
we can see them sitting side by side
bumping knees at a table in the zócalo
4
church bells gild the barrio‘s rooftops
our fingers reach to the skies and hold back light
we draw shadow blinds to shut out the day
night fills us with stars and silhouettes
we dream ourselves together in a silent movie
closed flesh woven from cobwebs
lies open to a tongue-slash of madness
the neighbor’s dog wakes up on the azotea
he barks bright colors as dawn declares day
and windows and balconies welcome the sun
can anyone see the dew-fresh flowers
growing from our tangled limbs?
your fingers sew a padlock on my lips
“Listen to the crackle of the rising sun!”
Tuesday’s Child
1
Thursday’s Child has far to go …
so too does Tuesday’s child,
especially this one, when he sets out
on a Tuesday on a long journey.
Just by chance, I caught this cormorant.
“Behind you, quick,” said Clare.
I turned and ‘Click!’
2
Such a miracle:
the first steps of flight
taken over water.
That first step heavy,
the second one lighter,
and the third one
scarcely a paint brush
pocking the waves.
3
The need for Tuesday’s Child
to take flight lies deep within me.
Fleeing from what?
Running towards what?
Who knows?
All I know is that the future
lies to the right of this photo
and the past lies to the left,
and I don’t know
what either might contain.
4
But I do remember the words
of Antonio Machado:
‘Caminante, no hay camino,
sólo hay estela sobre la mar.’
traveler, there is no road,
just a wake across life’s sea.
5
We may not know what lies ahead
but, like a ship at sea,
we leave white water behind us
and that wake tells us
where we have been
and what we have done.
‘Paciencia y barajar,” / Patience and shuffle the cards Miguel de Cervantes wrote, a long time ago, in the early seventeenth century. I think of it as watching and waiting. We must learn to observe, to stand still and watch the world around us. Who knows what lies there, just beneath the surface, waiting for us to find it?
We know our work is lonely and we thrive in the loneliness of the blank page, the blank screen. We stare at the water’s surface and wait and watch and then we shuffle the cards, the keys, the letters on the page, and something emerges. What will it be?
Carpe diem / seize the day: with the moment seized, we have time now to think, to polish, to work at it until it is ready. And yes, there is pride in that amber eye, pride and a sense of satisfaction.
We know our work is never done. We worry at it, work around it, gnaw it as a dog gnaws at a bone. Little children gathered round our grandma’s stove as the cookies cook we ask impatiently “are they ready now?”
Impatience is our enemy. We must wait in silence: wait and watch. Sooner or later that silver flash of inspiration will light up whatever page we happen to be decorating.
I first saw the Black Angel in Aldebarán’s cultural store in Ávila (2006). She sat there, in the shop window, along with several other angels, and I worshiped her from the distance of the street. Her image was taken from an original painting from Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464). This was turned into a 3-D image and then converted into the statue I saw in the shop window.
I brought the statue back to Island View, placed it on the shelf above the fireplace, where it still rests, and wrote several poems on the theme of Angels. I gathered them together in a chapbook entitled All About Angels that I self-published in Fredericton in 2009. The chapbook was dedicated to Clare’s great-aunt, D. E. Witcombe who departed this world on October 15, 2008.
All About Angels was also based on a book of a similar title, Sobre los Ángeles, written by Rafael Albertí, one of the poets of Spain’s Generation of 1927. I avoided the ambiguity of the Spanish title — Sobre (in Spanish) can mean Above or Beyond as well as About — by limiting my own title to All About Angels.
All About Angels
Paperback edition
All About Angels
Kindle Edition
For Carl Jung, angels are the messengers sent to inform people of the state of their world. For me, they are also the wild creatures that inhabit the world around me and often take the form of birds and other spiritual creatures. They can be best seen in those moments of solitude when we are most open to the natural world around us. Then, and sometimes only then, we can hear the urgent messages they bring.
Black Angel
You cannot hide
when the black angel comes
and knocks on your door.
“Wait a minute,” you say,
“While I change my clothes
and comb my hair.”
But she is there before you,
in the clothes closet,
pulling your arm.
You move to the bathroom
to brush your teeth.
“Now,” says the angel.
Your eyes mist over.
You know you are there,
but you can no longer see
your reflection in the mirror.
Angel Choir
(on seeing the Northern Lights at Ste. Luce-sur-mer)
listen to the choristers with their red and green voices
light’s counterpoint flowering across this unexpected son et lumière
we tremble with the sky fire’s crackle and roar
once upon another time twinned in our heavenly prisons
we surely flew to those great heights and hovered in wonderment
now our earthbound feet are rooted to the concrete
if only our hearts could sprout new wings and soar upwards together
the moon’s phosphorescent wake swims shimmering before us
the lighthouse’s fingers tingle up and down our spines
our bodies flow fire and blood till we crave light and yet more light
yet when the lights go out we are left in darkness
Croaking Angels
Their tunes are one note symphonies,
croaks of joy
moving their fellows to ecstasy,
exhorting them to share
the splendors of ditch life,
in a springtime bonding
that will loft them to the skies.
There’s an ancient magic in this calling:
love and laughter,
moonlight and water,
all the joyous things
one links with spring.
Moonlight swings its cheerful love lamp.
New leaves and buds are also known to sing.
Each day sees another spark of brightness in the grass, in the trees, or at the feeder. Where, I wonder, have they been? In whose back yard did they winter? Some, stray thoughts perched for a moment on a branch in the mind, fluttered last fall in the falling snow and melted away. Others, I know, stayed here with us and we fed them throughout the short cold days.
The robins, even though they are not my English robins, are my favorites, perhaps because they remind me of my childhood home. Less bold than those of my youth, they fly when we draw near and do not sit on the spade handle watching for worms as we turn the early earth and shake the garden back to life.
Sentry duty: and they march up and down the lawn pacing their quicksteps, then standing to attention. They strut their stuff, turn their heads, listen, and look like guardsmen on parade outside our pastoral palace.
With the guardsmen come the workmen, the busy birds, the ones who tap on the trees in search of insects or to set the juices running. Shy, they turn away and hide behind the trunk. But if we are quick, we can catch them, heads turned, when absorbed in their work, they forget to fear us.
And the song-birds, shiest of all, often heard, their melodies, but their quicksilver spirits seldom seen except by chance and the artist’s luck and speed of finger. But listen: other songs throb their melodies on the wind and most days now we wake to music. A calling in the trees in the evening’s glow also tells us the world has turned once more and the birds, the glorious birds, the dwindling flocks of endangered birds, less this year than last year or the year before, are back. We must welcome them and cheer them while they are still with us. Neither we nor they may endure much more.
rogermoorepoet 