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Wake
Such a miracle:
the first steps of the cormorant’s flight
taken over water.
That first step heavy,
the second lighter,
and the third scarcely a paint brush
pocking the waves.
The need to take flight
lies deep within me.
Like a ship at sea,
or a seabird over the waves,
I will leave white water in my wake
to prove that I was here,
for a little while,
but have now gone.
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Rainbow Return
I opened the car door
and he ran across the parking lot
and jumped into the back seat.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
He thumped his great tail, sniffed,
and licked my hand.
As we drove home, he thrust his head
between the seats and placed his paw upon my shoulder.
Then he licked my ear and the side of my face.
I pulled into the garage and let him out of the car.
He raced to the end of the drive, surveyed the neighborhood,
and drilled an invisible pee into the snow.
I whistled, and he ran back to the door,
whimpering and scratching, impatient.
I held the door open and he bounded in.
“You’re back home now,” I told him.
He ran to the cat’s bowl and lapped some water,
scoffed her kibble, and lay down in his usual place.
At night, he lies beside me in bed,
a fluffy spoon carved into my body’s curve.
In the morning, he walks through the kitchen
and doesn’t make a sound.
The cat senses he’s there and bristles and hisses
at rainbow motes dancing in the sun.
He’s sitting beside me now,
head on my knee, as I type these words,
one-handed, because I’m scratching him
in his favorite spot just behind his ear.
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Brandy Cove
I remember teaching my granny
how to climb the steep slope
from the beach to the headland.
“It’s easy, gran,” I said. “Look!”
I leaped from tussock to tussock,
up the path, each patch of grass
a stepping stone leading me upwards.
She stood there, below me,
breathing hard, her left hand
held against her chest,
just beneath her heart.
“Wait for me,” she said, panting.
“I’m catching my breath.”
I ran back down, then held out
my hand to help her.
It was so long ago,
but I remember it well.
Who now will hold out
a helping hand
as I age, pause, hand on heart,
to catch my own breath,
as I climb, not a steep cliff path,
but the stairs up to bed?
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Impressions
(Oaxaca, Mexico)
hard baked loaves of stone
hot cobbles beneath the feet
the burning street forced upwards
through shoe leather to scorch our soles
the sun’s orb an irresistible hammer
beating the strength out of the sweating body
heart sucked dry lungs shriveled
inside massive stone walls
candles crucifixes paintings of saints
statues carved wooden images
outside in the sunlight alebrijes
staring eyes wagging tails protruding tongues
their spirits breaking through the wood
turning from darkness into light
impressions a nose here
a pair of eyes there long black hair
a tree trunk swaying to the music
a black bible banged on a wooden table
a Cubist nightmare of detached body parts
multiple pin balls released in a rush
by an errant slot machine
stained glass reds blues greens
smoke from a candle twisting in air
light filtered from high windows
once open doors slowly closing
keys no longer turning in locks
unwound clocks no longer ticking
cobwebs gathering in forgotten rooms
flowers on the altars nochebuenas
with their single and double petals
crimson and cream cempasúchiles
marigolds lighting their golden
walkway to guide the dead
loved ones returning to visit the living
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Geese
Late last night, high above the house
in the sky’s giant highway,
geese flew overhead, honking.
I pinpointed their calls
leaning back, straining my neck,
and for a moment there were no stars,
just a feathered blackness blanking
the Big Dipper as it hung in the sky.
Harbingers, bringers of spring,
those Canadian geese erased
selected stars and left me breathless,
overwhelmed by so many memories
as they carved their sky path
far above my head.
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Freedom
We are all so lonely,
locked in our cardboard castles,
no view beyond the battlements,
save for the wild lands, the forest,
from which the enemy might come.
Wild beasts, we cage ourselves
in our isolation and bang our heads
on the bars we built to protect us.
Sometimes, at night, we ascend
to the topmost turret to observe
the stars that dance above us,
tracing our lives in their errant ways.
And is this freedom, this night sky,
with its wayward planets, trapped
in their overnight dance and weaving
our futures, for ever and ever, amen?
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Daffodils
Winter’s chill lingers well into spring.
I buy daffodils to encourage the sun
to return and shine in the kitchen.
Tight-clenched fists their buds,
they sit on the table and I wait
for them to open.
Grey clouds fill the sky.
A distant sun lights up the land
but doesn’t warm the earth
nor melt the snow.
The north wind chills the mind,
driving dry snow across our drive
to settle in the garden.
Our red squirrels spark at the feeder.
The daffodils promise warmth,
foretell future suns, predicting
bright warmer days to come.
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Tense and Tension
Your flightless fancies flit
through a darkness of despair,
as awkward as auks,
as clumsy as penguins
stranded in zoo cages
far from their native seas,
as meaningless as the dodos,
as dead as the ashes lying cold
beneath the crematorium’s fire.
A sudden bucket
clatters down the well,
but it draws no water.
Winter ice will not melt.
Desert sands may burn boat and feet
but they will not warm your glacial heart.
The manner of your second coming
brings forth no nourishment.
A spider web on the wall
grows into a mirror.
Face to face, present and past
become ambulant tenses
that foretell no conditional.
No future beckons,
let alone a future perfect.
A dislocation of infinitives
stretches into the infinity of
an invisible futurity of
never-joining railway lines.
23 April 1616 > 23 April 2021
International Book Day.
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the deaths of three great writers: el Inca Garcilasso de la Vega (Comentarios Reales, Peru), William Shakespeare (poetry and plays, England), and Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote and so much more, Spain).
Our hibiscus decided to issue its first official blossom of the year, just to help us all celebrate this day.
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Fire
Fire
a double-edged sword
Fire
the beginning
and fire the end
Fire
the means of forging
the Omega and Alpha
that surround us
day by day
Fire
surrounds us
but leads us
nowhere
we must create
our own path through
Fire
to the life beyond
Fire
so many things
to save from
Fire
so many things
to be consumed by
Fire and flame
only a fiercer Fire
will free us from
will put an end to
Fire
rogermoorepoet 