The list for the grocery would be short.
But walking through the aisles,
By itself, The List would grow, long and
With wings, maybe, as in poultry.
And promising as in spices, sweet like
Dates in a section closer to wines.
It would be important to impress the girl,
Nope, not soda or beer or pizza.
Not in that old way of wooing
That she would be a queen,
In the kitchen.
The young man would show off he could
Make fire and keep a pot warm,
Apologize as well he's no cook, but
She should stay put on the high chair
And enjoy his attempt to show grandly
What he has trouble saying plain.
And the pretext for her coming over?
Anything but a movie on a small screen,
Anything that would lead to the couch,
Anything that would lead to anywhere else
Except the kitchen.
And seeing him trying not to be a klutz
In an apron with a wooden ladle, she
Would most likely offer to cut the onions.
Between the two of them, someone would
Banter and another would quip,
And laughter a chorus that would fill.
The fried chicken wings, burnt.
The butternut soup, no salt.
Only the multigrain bread absolved.
He: "We got the dates, though."
She: "And this is some wine."
I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)
This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.
When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why
Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. By the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands,
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming
It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work
More than an entire ant's life can do.
I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)
This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.
When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why
Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. With the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands,
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming
It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work
More than an entire ant's life can do.
It will be shy of three months time.
The day set, traveling the wires
Paper to paper, what fate.
I thought it will be like floating.
While away time on placid waters.
She wakes up in time for office
Plants a quick kiss, I get up later
At sunup to walk the dogs, running
To leave what behind, moving towards
What waits ahead in time, in space.
*
The world too large, we have only
Such life. The dog who survived
Inner city to become part of home
Offered a rat she wrestled this morning.
Dead on its back at the front door.
What is not allowed to pass.
We picked up a snail making its way
Crossing the road and let it
At the side by the grass and puddle.
*
Over here, a butterfly comes to visit
The lemon on the sapling
We bought at the market three Sundays ago.
Three Sundays from now, a despedida.
What must be, must be done in celebration.
Bring in the wine and the photos
Posterity. No one gets left behind.
*
She and I recently painted the front door
Yellow and called the place Sunshine,
What is constant in this country.
There she is again, the woman with a basketful of mabolo.
Velvet fruit that must be animal,kitten furry on my hand
Yesterday it looked at me with eyes that meow, meow, meow
Is what the kitten said meow, meow, meow. The woman said
Be careful. Kitten is small and so is the velvet apple
Like puppy head pat, pat, pat. Love, love, love woman said.
She is waving at me now from the other side. I see her
Smile waving her hand. She crosses the water, knee deep
Waist deep, too deep, she says I love you I love you
I love you and we are on a paper boat
She paddles and says Look! Look at the fish! And I swim
And my skin laughs because it is water, not
So loud, I laugh and laugh and flap about but I don't.
The woman said very good you can do it. I find my hands
Into a circle tracing dots into a heart, Who am I?
The woman asks. She is crossing the waters and there is
Ripple behind her, there are sounds, there is a car
Brooom, brooom, brooom it is loud and the triangle
On paper is sharp I try to cover it blue, blue, blue
Because it is noisy and loud and sharp and bright
I squint my eyes and see the line and clench my teeth,
Hold the pen, fingers like this, catch a fish, want
The wide and flail my arms but I don't. The woman said
Very good you can do it I love you I love you I love you.
There she is again, the woman with a basketful of mabolo.
Across the water across the table there are sounds
Something moves at the corners of my eyes, it is breeze.
There are suns on my paper and we are on a boat.
Who am I? she says. She opens her hand and there it is
A mabolo, velvet kitten puppy fish circle dots heart.
for An
The space between cities is a body of distance
hardly translatable into a map we can pretend
able to transverse by way of roads and rails,
ports and piers cohering so-called boundaries
of what is there and here and then and now as
east and west and north and south referring to
sun and wind and seasons, the way we attempt
landmarking passages if only to remember all
places we've been, also those never been to
except heard by name or gestured at in story.
The space between is body of distance, tunnel
lighted dimly: memory and dream, both palpable
to skin, real enough to hear the laugh from
a mind's photograph of one's own ageless self
in a moment everlasting. Who else is there?
an entire library of snapshots handwritten in
cursive with names, some clearer than others,
invoked often as bridges over which one's own
mind and body travels, loop of a map a place
only in river-spaces crossing between cities.
I am slow to anger, except in particular times
There is no water. Nothing except dry heat
For instance this, in forsaken countries
(for there really are such forsaken places).
It was not always like this, the slowness
The calm with which I attempt to take in stride
The many kinds of failure: processes and people.
There had been much audacity when I was younger:
Edition of myself that had not yet known better
Someone I can now only admire on those still
Burning in fire, those still absolutely certain
On certainty. Leading the walk ahead convinced
Nothing cannot be surpassed, no matter literal.
Such admirable conviction! Such admirable anger!
Perhaps anger can be exhausted, though not all
Not all. There is still anger in reserves
The kind that is slow to come, vengeful
Poisonous and antipathetic, something that does
Not easily yield to forgiving or forgetting--
It is terrible! As all things are when passions
Come alive. Who is afraid? Who else is afraid?
I think it is not fear of death itself as much as
Fear of dying; death is a given, the psyche
Attuned to it since time beyond memory: all
Archetypes of travel (companions, fellow solo
sojourners, boats, terminals, stop-overs...)
Everyday, departures are what have come to be
known like the pace of one's own breathing--
But who can tell of true arrivals?
Everyone has ideas, some more convincing
Than others; what may be more fearful is
Living: that very long wait, so long
We become desperate lovers of life itself.
She says to hurry to hurry to hurry I say to pause "I take my waking slow"
The things to do will never run out They are a legion that never slows
She chides and she smiles and sometimes understands the need to slow
In praise of slowness we kiss She half walks and I half run
To take our waking slow
When finally I will meet you,
I imagine there will be
nothing to utter and many
distances to cross.
Each of us a world
too long alone on its own,
making and conversing
with bird shadows on walls.
We will be right across
each other on the table,
wondering how it all
has come to this, singular
moment of meeting.
To begin the real knowing
is to begin the crossing
from whichever previously
we know as real or unreal.
How will I say the first word.
How will we begin
 |
| photo by J. Pinzon |
This kind of solitude makes the hours long.
I take what I can take: a passing thought,
a banana ripe in its own time, a part of a part
of a scene playing out outside the window.
The summer is both long and short.
We check our calendars, look for moments
to get away: from where, to where
Who knows? It seems
only the plants are truly unconcerned.
Quiet and steady, palms always open
for both light and dark.
When you meet a gypsy, on the road you begin to wonder
at your own rootedness, the way you have chosen to
never stray at the straw path the maps gestured at with the stars.
They sometimes call it destiny.
Although whether it is the meeting her or the crossroad
you may never know, standing at the foot of some bridge
you have constructed in mind. Fate
has a way of being many things at once strange and familiar
an open face of someone once dreamed about.
She has a tambourine, a ukelele, and a stray dog.
You have a compass, a dream, and a fear.
When you meet a gypsy, you wonder
at your own rootedness. They sometimes call it
destiny.
A number of things i've given up
having reached a time
of knowing
not everything beneath the sky.
The birds know more.
And the sea mammals, even though
they are disappearing one by one.
From behind her counter, the secretary
must know something
the bosses don't.
And so the events of the world
turn and come around in patterns
appearing random. Who can say?
All the physicists are trapped
in a world, the lawyers argue,
policy makers disagree.
Meanwhile, the news goes
on and on and the stray
dogs in third worlds die unburied.
That is not counting children.
And the men and women who leapt
at turnpikes without looking.
How does one take
their tea in the morning?
Someone delivers the paper
another sends a note.
I write her a letter, imaginary.
Some things i've given up,
some things not.
The Kamasutra of KindnessPosition No. 3It’s easy to lovethrough a cold springwhen the polesof the willowsturn greenpollen falls likea yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air
but to love for a lifetime
takes talent
you have to mix yourself
with the strange
beauty of someone
else
wake each morning
for 72,000
mornings in
a row so
breathed and
bound and
tangled
that you can hardly
sort out
your arms
and
legs
you have to
find forgiveness
in everything
even ink stains
and broken
cups
you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side
there’s never going to be anything
straight or predictable
about your path
except the
flattening
and the springing
back
you just go on walking for years
hand in hand
waist deep in the weeds
bent slightly forward
like two question
marks
and all the while it
burns
my dear
it burns beautifully above
you
and goes on
burning
like a relentless
sun
by Mary Mackey
Restraint. One of the first things taught
one of the most enduring things practiced:
never speak too loud, or talk too fast
or eat too much, or want too much.
A golden mean for everything.
In poetry, the practice is not speaking
what you mean to say. To say it
in another way. To let you sense
want and desire, need and a kind of
emptiness to be filled, but does not
speak of it under the light of day.
it will take all of daylight to mend the fence. a number of things has got to be moved away, like folders of paperwork calling from an upstairs tabletop. but the sun is warm and inviting. the sky never been bluer
for days. the nip in the wind reminds of kite flying and childhood home. where there was guitar and Sunday, eternal-hours and no talk of god. the really big things we are resigned to ungrasp. a praying
mantis somewhere is in company with a newt. and all is well in other worlds. who will fix the fence and who will need mending. who can keep company with the grass, the wind, the chimes, the open palmed
bush with its white jasmin flowers.
possibly not the same person who takes the foil and the épée and point at another's chest to kill. for sport. a physical version of another involving the killing of hundreds and millions in several stages until one's own pawn becomes greater than another's king. plans for war. kill time while sharping the mind. possibly
not the same person who tends the basil, the tarragon, the wild mint, the parsley, the dill. who takes time to watch the sunrise glow and dreams of sea. not
the same person, angry and a vise, who throws without regret, lines, lives. not the same one who collects. memories and serenity, joys in souvenirs. the one who sings with a guitar and writes
the world as it is as is, and life as is, it is.
On the way to the grocery and back this morning, the names of summer roll in scents and colors. Banana blossoms and laurel leaves. Star anise and sun-dried mushrooms. The bright red watermelons and orange cantaloupes, more melons, mangosteens and star apples, jackfruits, the beautiful warm yellows of mangoes and varieties after varieties of bananas. Pineapples. Coconuts. Along a street, bougainvilleas and hibiscus, and bushes of wild berries in bloom.
