May 27, 2009

Lorca

Poet, you summoned the moon out in verses
and set her high over the hills of Spain
to loom god-like, a blue face without eyes
adrift in the darkness.

But you went the way of the dust many seasons
before the moon of a man's heart rises, before
the boughs of the soul's autumn shudder with leaves
morena-hued and slender.

So this is a fool's lament, because your lines
slid like the moon through clouds between my hands.
I thumbed a borrowed book by lamplight, shifted,
drowsy and heavy-lidded,

from your Spanish to its literal translation,
my wife at my shoulder, a petite Mexican blossom
scented like neatly-folded linen, her gaze alive
with the flashing killifish

of television, my son in the back room cooing
at the slowly-rotating mobile. O what grief
can I feel for you now, amigo de la luna,
who yesterday was a stranger?

An Imposition

His hands upon the folded coverlet
 embrace in poise beyond his years. The darkness,
 settling on his tender eyes, begins
 to take familiar shapes. On wall and ceiling
 sliding headlights are a swift reprieve.

Beyond the glass that keeps the weather out
 branches frisk in starlight, leaves whisper: Child,
 remember, He is watching. Therefore may
 your little hands not now unbind their stillness,
 your fingers not fare forth to bring defilement.

Be gladly blinded in beneficent darkness,
 and if you dream, may it be a dream of angels:
 one beneath you and the other above you,
 watching, waiting. Child, the toms are crying,
 for they are mad with murder and the moon.

Lie still, and when you wonder, do not wander,
 but lie in wait, for One is coming soon
 who made such things as murder and the moon.

For One Who Would Rather Not Hear It

Among arches and neglected gates
 cherubs, in immaculate balance,
 stand round-bellied, white stone flaked.
 Birds, in pedestaled basins
 where new rainwater pools,
 preen, tented in bougainvillea
 bowed with dense red clusters.
 Come through your crowded garden
 with soft-scuffed sandal-fall,
 your broad-brimmed hat attired
 with a single dandelion;
 and in such mean regalia
 with only the bees for fanfare,
 two cardinals suddenly flourish,
 and thresh your favorite praise.

Lanternslides

When Snow White enters the forest there are dangers
 more complex than poisoned apples: shadows
 draw around her, and trees, suddenly incarnate,
 paw with branches like arthritic fingers.
 Her arms held out for balance, she describes
 frenetic gestures of panic, treads
 the rising waters of blindness; distended eyes
 pan for the moon's curved wink of silver.
 This scene frightened my mother as a child,
 despite the straight beam stabbing overhead
 alive with dust, and in those fifties, smoke.

A few years later my mother gave
 three more innocents to the world: pulled forth
 from darkness like hooked fish, to gulp cold air
 and wail against a sudden brilliance. Now
 we are accustomed to surprises, to invasions
 of light, the prying and obnoxious beam
 an usher sweeps to sunder anxious couplings.
 Our lives are marked by farings into darkness,
 by ventures into uncertain twilights. Be it
 womb or cave, the cinema proffers both
 the light's solace and the dark's discomfort.

Forbidden Fruit

We searched in windfall, derelict and young,
 for flawless apples: most had gone to mold
 and made a brown and sticky pulp among
 trefoil and honeysuckle. We were told
 never to eat crab-apples, to resist
 their succulent green skin and sour meat:
 "they'll make you sick," our mothers would insist,
 but feasting in defiance made them sweet.

We packed them in brown bags and ducked like thieves
 across the field, into the harboring wood
 to share our bounty under sibilant leaves.
 No one got sick. We never understood
 the warning. But from time to time we'd squirm,
 our celebration spoiled by a worm.

Odysseus to His Son

Forget about what you've heard, boy, all of it.
 Throw it in the fire there, it's nothing.
 Let me say something. There is nothing worse
 than stewing in the guts of a ship, hounded
 by memories of a face, by dreams of eyes
 you doubt still take the trouble to weep for you.

Forget about war. There is little virtue in it.
 You'll piss yourself and look for a hole to hide in.
 A sword is heavy; blood is sticky. It stinks.

The truth is I was lost most of the time,
 knocked here and there like a doll, sliding by Death
 like a slug he would rather not soil his hands with.
 Learn a trade, and find yourself a girl
 who'll look beyond what's common in you, who'll see
 what may be worth weaving something pretty for.

Running

Struck, he bolts like
far thunder,
the heart
of the ground hammers.

Flicker of white tail;
leaves,
like parted curtains,
spring shut.

He carries an arrow
deep into wilderness,
feathers bloom
from his side.

He's found at twilight
over a deadfall,
wide-eyed,
ready to leap.