The hour
whispered coolly,
green in light showering,
felt the dew of moistened leaf skin,
saw within a shaft of light
a promise which would never break,
be that which time wears thin
or hides,
freeing from us its passage
allowing sooty roots to breathe.
The astral Word undulates in ocean swells,
flowing dark eyed flora,
through wooded thickets, meadow violets,
tolling for a morning when we will wake
together–a song and testament:
familial, sacred
reaching in the dark loam,
the fibrous flesh, pale sweetness,
of a fragrant green,
beneath Abrahamic centuries of scarred,
knotted husk–the heart,
time has told me–
be not removed so easily.
Like the vine and fig,
fig and olive,
pilgrim road of palms–
tips of fingers peel at a fissured wall.
I walked the mist
of early morning primeval
turning moistened gold and lifting
through the charcoal branch mosaic
of boulevard shade trees,
delicately sketching
armistice between soft antiphons,
into silver grapes of wet glass
necklaces affixed to hulls,
glistening delicate
with the halo glow and hole in the sky.
All the world was naked and quiet,
as the soft, heavy confession of a common flesh,
is as warm incense fingers, caressing the morning light,
silently fawning,
whispering
our gentle strategies to the wind:
old, weak with wisdom,
branches shudder in the rain–
see–and say, sacred
mornings of our life
together
where poverty was translucent
ineffective
and we were
warm
in the colors of our kitchen
and unafraid
through eleven provinces,
to Yenan caves cut
in the loess-clay yellow,
they walked.
How did they smile,
having crossed,
passed, lost?
Renaissance of suffering
necessary
manifesto of change:
A pavilion filled only
with the sound of
crane’s wings lifting.
Man comprises characters of strength and field.
My old friend, I found you quietly
talking with the wind,
fish, with those poet ghosts
of old, turning verse in
the rippling hour
of feeding time; fresh
detritus clung to
the dampened dock line,
gray green threads,
the gentleman fisher slides in
on the wind, flutter balks
at the shadow and the scattering
of fish,
reflection of the graying
mirror kissing,
the boatman with his hook and spike,
reaching out
to tiny crafts–round with
lake sunning strands–
skiffs heaped
with lake grasses,
two men fishing calligraphy.
I have faith in Chile and your destiny. –Salvador Allende
We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.
- Still Another Day XV, Pablo Neruda
I.
See–
from below the surface,
the conical silver torrent
of a radiant mercurial birth,
falling in love
–the moment of suspension, weightlessness,
then,
crystal balls blown
from a gaping mouth,
marbles of disorientation
expelled from the nose,
with the snow-globe exhales
of disparity,
trembling along the emerald belly–
no slow ascension to the surface,
to equilibrium.
You took from me my damp overcoat of age,
led me by the hand to the fireside wonder of
a handful of years lived out of myself,
youthful ebullient parasol of child-supernova,
widening span of the light of wonder
in breath and color,
new skin,
eyes free of time, grit, or consequence.
The top of your dark stare hangs crescent reflections,
dew upon each of your threshing scythes,
where my words falter in your presence,
cut down
in an exhale of smoke in place of my words
as the moment passed,
from my dark corner seat, your polite pause,
you ask me –as you do each night–
¿Todavia, no te gusta bailar?
No, but I could dance with you.
¿Que? ¿Que dijiste? she asks, slowly tilting her head to
one side, eyes squint on smiling,
her sea change surface burning,
the churning loss of myself to the depth of her ocean womb,
as quickened skies of the city morning sift gray into pale blues and deep blues and bruised and pitch pastel of her pupils;
now as she slips to a lean against the balcony brace,
Que dijiste?
You knew, you sensed it, somehow,
there in the group of us,
how you waved, laid hands
upon the shoulders of others with smiles,
but for me always, chau-kisses
at our street corner goodbyes,
amor a primera vista y
el dolor de amor
al lo mismo tiempo.
I lose myself, tracing your barrio curvatures,
striding to you,
then dark quiet rides,
black taxis of the larger night,
Pisco-laden saunter,
fumar de puchos and your scent, woven into mi bufanda;
where the night before made breaths and speech reliant upon rapport,
mi dolor, in single syllable expressions,
exhaled en la ciudad-cielo,
mornings where you wore your black Sargasso
piled atop tu corona-día de oro–
crowning the coast of Isla Negra;
your chin up, quiet and confident at the mirror,
aros de cobre y piedra-flores,
your nose pierced,
perforado por un anillo delgado de oro,
bracelet cuff of plata y las conchas del Pacífico,
your neck ripe with flora scent and sensuality,
drawing the path of my footsteps upon your eyelids.
I walk heavy to the warmth of my flat,
the cold weight of your voice in my heart–
rising, ever rising as I unravel from my scarf and collar–
my words for you manifesting in the banshee’s dress of
my cigarette breath exhaled into the space heater.
A soul’s length apart from you now,
anticipation unaligned,
echo of a now impossible life through eternity,
tidal, the folds of your pareo violeta,
taut to your shoulders and breasts, the length of your abdomen and back
delving smoothly across your sacral geography,
yo no he olvidado, lo que ha me roto y liberado
I have not forgotten, that which has broken and freed me.
I am immersed in the emptiness between our words,
the language of our bodies flooding the arid glances we share,
communicating in our simple poetry,
from the cradle of your lap and hands.
II.
I travel North from Providencia,
to your apparition in coastal pueblos,
mid-dance atop the rails
of pitching, fishing-skiffs
and The Veil of Los Molles.
The shake-summoning of your pandereta–palm to skin
urges me South, to the Valpo-Viña-Reñaca cloak pin,
prendedor del mar de niebla dorada y deseo–
the sea of golden fog and desire.
As I approach the mountain tunnel
leading to Valparaíso,
the end of this journey is
made–less of glass and intermittent sunlight–
more real,
wash basin hands borne upon the face,
cold morning eyes at the warm bedside
anointing at the seashell basin-sacrament,
reconciliation.
Sun of early morning,
sown as seed,
golden shouldered workers,
clear the vineyard skein,
the elderly man’s blue and grey eyes of blindness
soothsay from the edge of the toll road,
his outstretched hand of
mountain fog swims the fields
as child magic–
a quilt lifted up and curled toward the ceiling
resting slowly–
soft and smoothly atop the viña-cama.
Everything has slowed around me–
I borrow eyes of the bereaved–
as a hollow whine brims with thoughts
composing a life of passing.
The spirit of the mountain bursts into an umbrella
of shreds of phantom lovers in scent and whispers,
to stay, remain,
quédate…quédate acá con nosotros.
The rough cobblestone side streets of this neighborhood hill
fill with the tolling voice of Valparaíso–
the scent of old wine bottles, paint and seawater,
patchouli y mota–
in a loom of cool sunlight,
art embracing itself, consoled and woven within
the graffiti message of the juventud
upon the walls of antigua.
Let no home here be removed,
lest the quiet secrecy of its unity
tumble into the tumult of the sea.
A woman walking the sidewalk sacristy
takes a photo of me writing,
and I become a parody of myself.
I summon the barefoot pueblo of my youth–
caked in windblown coastal sand
thieving tourists-cameras and disposable vacation dinero–
vowing, here, to continue my fade,
into the coastal embrace.
Loosed, I drift East,
into the low-tone and sharp ring of Los Andes ambient winds,
singing crisp over el manton del mar de nube,
the shawl of the cloud sea and serpent ladder calle.
No olvidas, yo no me he olvidado,
this American life of mine, undefined,
over-burdens me tonight,
at the end of each glass of Capel, your voice steals my breath,
so I have only tears to break my silence,
shivering the bonecage branches of my winter emptiness.
There is no one here to understand
I am breathless and broken;
these eyes close upon your strings and skin
as you sing our life into me.
My bed is empty of your letter S
next to mine, in the low coastal curvilinear tide of bedding,
of your smile pulling back into the depths of
moments before we spoke–
into these eyes
empty now of your manner of speech–
breath-filled bird flight and river-stone
radiance permeating the slow revolutions–
your parasol of laughter.
Change me to make me
the fire of child-wonder,
for within this sublime death of my senses to
your memory
I cannot hold this breath any longer,
for here I live aware of my dying–
Te quiero mucho mas
de lo que tu me quieres
pero me falta la canción de tu alma,
yo dejaría todo acá, para ti
para estar contigo solamente,
oír la suavidad de tu voz en mi alma,
como la luna, y su luz
de un mil corazones que tiene duele,
como mi dolor,
–in prayer for the love we share.
Que? ¿Que dijiste?
III.
Was any of it real?
I still feel like I’m there dreaming this.
Each morning I rise between sleep and consciousness,
recognize I am speaking the language–
I’m still there, dreaming this.
A dream where
faces of people I know
are not the same,
slightly changed and unreal–
lights are low where I am not looking,
peripheral hours pass without definition of fullness–
ubiquitous openness of emptiness–
food is not to taste,
light is not the same.
I howl a bottle of ink, broken in my eyes
“You have all of me.”
Your slender whisper disarms:
“You gave it to be lost, to be made for more than this.”
Wake up
-out from under this
dumb-tongue English;
return to where I earned
the fullness of each moment,
felt the breath accompanying each stride,
felt the empty space of bench slats pressed to my back and side–
reclined–the afternoon sun
changing the colors of my room.
I am only dreaming this; I am still here.
I feel the teapot whistle rattle on the stovetop,
the hallway smokers slipping beneath my door,
the neighbor apartment door closing hollow,
the quick jingle of keys cupped into fingers,
slipped into a jacket pocket,
hands and the open door
to stairway flights filled with
avenida-orchestra of taxis, busses and motocicletas,
threading through the open-air sidewalk café table conversational arpeggios;
I must be here at home in Providencia,
only dreaming the hot southern sloth drawl of Tennessee,
seconds from the bedside toll
and the sheer drapery swath of sunlit linen;
I am seconds from waking–
siesta, into Once–
un cortado doble, con Astrud,
with you and her song of Corcovado,
a life in love with you–from here.
Widower
I.
Never more beautiful
these oak and maple
gilded leaflet letters
written in silver autumnal rains
prayers and words unspoken
relinquished to the land
II.
He held her hand from five years away
her death of this world
never from his life
his laugh
his pride
his tears now teeming with anticipation
for the moment outside of night
where morning refrains
for a few fleeting moments
her soul seen in the turning curve of color tones
the sheen across the heavens’ sphere
III.
A new dawn
a swath of pale soft light
cut through the gaunt-
a promise of sight
in a way he once
could have never imagined
throughout the rest of his life
The range is wrapped in featherbedding
coniferous fog over cobalt waters
the City bleeds in busses
trains and traffic lights
brothers and sisters in boots and umbrellas
step into puddles as seconds into minutes
A match is struck, run atop the road,
the warm, tiny flame lights the hearth of a heart-
and nothing would be the same
february
Her face framed in soft darkness
where she paints the pillow with feathered fire-strokes of hair
The night is too small in this bed
where the early morning is already in our eyes, on our skin
with lips we strive to find ways without words
fingertips tracing secrets to each other
in the sanctum of this room
entwined…
…two red tulips bow
in the frost of the new ‘morn
to the gilded silver lullabies
from a reddened oaken horn
upon a gentle kissing chill
to the leaded glass and wood
of our bedroom window sill
we dream In the warm hearth
of our blanketed sleep
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