Duende, New Mexico
the little hamlet of Duende off the Chama highway makes me think of Federico Garcia Lorca
turns out its full name is San Francisco the Dwarf— duendes are Spanish goblins
mischievous spirits that steal small children or braid their hair
if one appears, ask it for the impossible like a basket of water from the river
it also means the height of emotion having soul, like a blue high-heeled flamenco shoe that cracks the earth open beneath the stage
I Went by the Old Apartment
where we first lived in this town. I expected the apricot tree, stage right, that we watered as a sapling and an empty space, stage left, where the other tree had died.
I planned to write a poem about how these trees were like you and me, (living and dead). Imagine my surprise— big shaggy Chinese elm instead of a hole, stage left.
I’m in no position to look for signs and omens. I’ve been wrong before, will be again. But I can say with certainty I know the two types of rain.
Old Masters
Sunset over the canyon,
A viscous amber light
That drips with kindness
Over rock.
Looking towards the north rim
A few dozen people of all nations
Sit on the stone walls or venture
A few minutes down the trail
That leads seventeen miles to the bottom.
An old lady in an enviable
Indian print blouse
Of pale blue lotuses
Stumbles on a tiny stump
And regards the earth with suspicion
As if it has opened
Into a paradise of stone before our feet.
The sun sinks, as usual, in the west
The moon has been up for hours
(Although I myself have had a nap)
Sails high one day before full
Shadowing its craters
Above another dead juniper.
I’m reminded of Rembrandt
Using his neighbors as models
For tales of the Jewish Bible.
Down to our last crust our last
Half glass of wine,
But still the colors are unlimited.
Moving from motive and emotion
To the quotidian and back again
And despite all those self portraits
Sometimes just a face in the crowd
As Joseph tells his dreams aloud.
Chiaroscuro
Jagged light
An autobiography in pigment
Lead white, bone black, madder lake
This day’s story is over
Hues fading into night.
Touch and Go
I held you in my arms, fifteen years later you were 2 1/2 pounds of ash speckled with bits of bone.
On the 22 Filmore bus oh, I wanted you at the edge of Japantown as fog turned to rain.
Grief—or marriage—is a game of freeze tag I can’t move until you touch me, petrified in place.
On the 22 Filmore I sat so close I could kiss you now with a touch of my hand I say—go, just go.