November 10-17, 2013: Isabalino Anastasio Guzman and Frank Scalero

La Llegada

………………….I’m here: …..…Among
the smudging palms trees of my airplane
window –…… Among the stale cobwebs
of my loose reflections – ……Among
tongues chanting: “Que bien, que bien.”

Losing myself through ……..security and Bacardi
…..……bottles –…..…Suspending myself
on the bright murals of fingers and toes –
Melting left, singing with my shadow – I meet
myself at the middle of baggage claim.

Outside, a man offers me a taxi – speaks
English. …………………I smile, say si.
Mosquitoes begin to bite with leaking jet fuel.
Music piles into the empty seat next to me.

…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….I ride the taxi home

To Photograph a Whisper

(¡Amigos!)

I always carry with me a box of photographs
my mother took of trips no puedo recordar.
This one was in the kitchen, as we celebrated
my second birthday, seconds before I blow
the single candle we could barely afford.
In it, she strives to capture the whisper
de mis labios – the simple wish of a two year old.

No es sencillo. I wish to capture the bird’s flight
under my tongue. To taste each color
de cada pluma. To breathe in each trill until
song tumbles into heartbeat – una orquesta
atrapado en mi pecho. To let my mouth be the open
birdcage, inviting every bird to feed on my kiss.
It was something my mother couldn’t give.

Lope and Howl

When I was Eighteen,
My future was fertile ground,
And I had a pocketful of seeds.
So I laced up my boots and humped the hills of Appalachia.
I tred the upturned bones of earth herself,
Mountains worn down by time and man, not always kind.
Whistling along, I spied a valley, verdant as spring,
Walden’s Warblers waiting for me.
 
But soon, my feet sank into
The blood soaked soil,
A lex talionis tax: civil payment
For the sin of slavery.
I hiked through Harper’s Ferry, witness to
John Brown’s failed raid, failed yet faithful
to his God and to the dream of what would become the true America.
 
My dream too, revolution, not guns for slaves,
But revolution still, a liberation of spirit, of sinew and of flesh
Toothy dreams… like the lope and howl of wolves.
Elemental dreams: like water as waves, like air as wind,
like fire to burn the dross of civilization off.
 
So I pointed my ears north, listening, howling.
I paddled over Canadian waters,
Cut through heaven’s reflection to the lonely cry of loons,
I planted myself among towering pines.
They too, like brothers, listened to the wolf, breathed the wind,
Stretched arms toward sun and star.
 
Eighteen and…
 
My future loomed like the moon.
Tasting it, I uprooted, I clambered up the tallest trunk,
Clung to the topmost branches and leaned….
Reached out night after night as
Moon birthed in the east, kissed the west,
waxed and waned just out of reach.
 
And then….it set… over that piney horizon,
And did not rise again.

I still howl desire into the darkness of night,
Still lope down lonely roads,
And still burn with a fire for freedom.
 
The moon shall rise again.