More nights ahead

We can put together a hundred or more possibilities,
letting two characters meet, in spite the number
of ways, streets, corners, bars, restaurants, cities.
Did you not once say you will have a hard drink
at the bar at the edge of your sleep? Even though cold,
I have returned to the uncertainty of outdoors now, 
stopping at diners where tired men and tired waitresses
call each other by name. The home fries both nostalgic
and sorry. Something always pulls me back. 

Sometimes I look up and watch flocks of birds, mostly
when flocks of young people pass by. Do they
know how we can devote our entire lives
to a cause truly lost?
How the foolish idealism of our once immortal
sense drove us to where we are now. Here...

And is it wrong to think women like you will always be
less lonely? I have come to deny myself. But 
how it bangs its fists on my door wanting
to be let out, telling me 
I am human, human, human. 
So I try to keep away from the door,
away from the bar at the edge of your sleep.

2300

Twenty three hundred and there is a random line in mind.
An image lingered from the last story read, an Atwood;
the story, party autobiographical.
At the corner of my eye, a house lizard looks about.
You can almost see through its new skin.
There are no stars tonight; the sky is threatening rain.
I want to tell you about stray dogs daily seen
but it not going to be a happy story.
What can be told happily about? Happily being a word
that skips and hops like a child
singing a newly learned song or meeting a new friend
who has agreed to exchange marbles with a bubble gum
the kind that leaves a tint on your teeth.
When did you learn to whistle?
I learned to move my ears when I was nine or ten or
eleven or twelve; who can remember exactly when?
Summers melt themselves together; you and I once
ran light footed on the wind itself.
The ears can still move to this day;
a trick to fascinate any child with.
One of these days I think I will find myself
telling why I have stayed away from church
even though god must still be out there.
No one asked "Can a poem really change a world?" Answer is
no
but they are written anyway because the lines are there.
Lines like boundaries of what lies on either sides.
The day is unfinished, but has ended.
  

Rodovia

Portia passed away yesterday. Word reached me late, 
translating itself from Portuguese to English, 
from the last photo I saw of her (Atlanta, smiling 
beside another colleague on sabbatical leave)
to the photo found after having made my way across

morning coffee, rain (another storm is coming
to these islands), and jazz.
On the news, only a broken motorcycle on highway
only a trace, previous presence. No Portia.

Had I been at the office yesterday I would have had
company to share loss with: this kind 
of irreplaceable space occupied by her joy.
Her youthfulness at 67.

She would have had a temper for mentioning the number--
the only way to cause her age. But such a life! 
Of indefatigable joy.

Two Days Away

It is always possible to write 
about seemingly random things.
The way the mind a pastiche.

At the moment I think about where
are my glasses? The light is harsh.
Also, the motorcycle key.

The beach wonderful today. 
The humidity and heat in this country.
Yesterday I dropped by at Ozee's 

met the new woman, the fifth one 
I've known since meeting the Pole 
eight years ago. Who says 

the house is empty. At the moment
she is gone for a week; and not
one of us talks about the possibility.

Although sometimes she says
"before you leave." 

I am afraid, sometimes, to even think
about it: leaving or staying.
Although the two Germans are marking

each day that takes them closer,
fostered local dogs in tow, 
to finally returning home.

secret rain

i realize just now it might have been the first May rain.  some minutes ago.  it woke me up, it being so unexpected.  it was so warm and humid last night, starry too.  no trace of red clouds, or wind when i walked the dog.  when the rain came, the first thought was finally a break of coolness, some draft through the windows left open.  then of the clothes left hanging on the clothesline in the yard.  i got up from bed and walked to the other end of the room, parted the curtains. partly thought of maybe dashing to save what can be saved of the what-ever still partly-dry clothes.  then decided against it.  W* who now sleeps under the newly made bed just looked at me and didn't even bother to move.

went downstairs to have a glass of water and of course couldn't get back to sleep.  wrote some while the rain pelted.  checked emails and a call for submission.  thought of the graduate papers that still need evaluating.  opened the file but didn't read it; noting it instead as a box of to-do tomorrow. listened to the rain slowly easing itself.  calming down.  into no more than drops.  

now listening closely, there are actually sounds of crickets. a motor at a distance.  and my eyes, having adjusted to the lack-light, find it is not really so dark after all this time of the night.  lamp post light seeps partly through the curtains.  and the white light from the laptop i've put on the bed.  it occurs to me now: maybe it was not really the first rain this long summer.  maybe it has rained secretly, nights, leaving only the telltale moist on the grass i mistake as mist by early morning.


















  

note to an adventurer

a tempting thing to do.  to claim one is away all the time.  living on a backpack, with a book, a water bottle.  running or walking, or taking the uphill steps.  into more unfamiliar places.  hike or bike the edges of spaces, taking pictures.  photos, trinkets and other souvenirs.  so-called evidences of a half life.

the shore

i dreamt again, last night, of coming back to the bay.
the same bay reconstructed several times; each time different
and the same.
i was flying and saw it again from above.
the waters were tumultuous and gray
and there was a big boulder, uneven, jutting out towards sea.

i tried to come as close as i could to the shore.
there was a small patch of sand, a small valley
between the weather-beaten house and the large dark boulders
on the small patch of sand there will always be people
beach happy and unaware 

a few meters before them, a few meters past the line
where their children play on the shore
a cliff begins, where the bay gnaws wide
and there will always be, recurring in every dream,
the unexpected rising tide
the whipping of larger and larger waves.

the children would scramble to the shore.  
parents would collect them in towels and
young friends would laugh.  everyone would 
hide their fears, everyone would hurry
to leave the shore and the bay and head home.

i knew these.  having dreamt the same shore again and again.
changing the scapes of its face: one time it was a pier
so very long and stretching towards another bridge
that crumbled too soon and fell apart 
people fell into the cold 
turbulent seas.  i knew these.  having dreamt the same shore

again and again.  the deeply gray, downcast skies.
last night, i dreamt i could fly. 
and came to the shore as fast as i could
urged the people to leave.  the gray was fast getting dark.
i recognized the people: they were my family.

and they were about to leave when i came
climbing on shared motorcycles to leave 
the remote shore that had suddenly gone narrow.
i was to leave with them, to drive my sister's motorbike
taking the handles and revving the engine.  
my sister climbed behind me on the scooter.  we were leaving

the road had suddenly gone potholed and steep
ninety degrees up of slowly loosening dried mud
again, i revved the engine.  and again.  trying
to keep steady.  the tires trying hard not to swerve.
i became afraid of the inevitable fall from the vertical incline.
all the other motorcycles had sheerly, barely made it.

loose dirt and gravel danced beneath the tires.
the scooter didn't have enough power.  i turned to look
at my sister but she was gone.
her motorbike couldn't make it.  i carried it on my shoulder
instead, the land and the shore was falling apart
there was a balcony of the weather-beaten house again 

i clung on it with my other arm.  and across, into the house
i could see, between
the scooter i was holding on on one shoulder and 
hanging on for dear life on the other, i could see
someone recognizable from the house noticed me.