HOLDING ON

HOLDING ON 

This cool stillness on a bare porch jolts me

from a somber thought: hanging by a thread,

this fluffy piece of thistledown tells us all

about how tenuously we cling to a place we

never really owned. Like that wind tossed

seed-carrier, when we dance our final twirl

and all the dancers off the floor, we hold on

to a lingering melody that keeps us swaying,

alas, to an absent band---an invisible yarn

binding us to a story's end. We barely tremble. 

---Albert B. Casuga

07-31-11

Prompt: Cool and still. The piece of thistledown stuck to a porch post by an invisible thread—small flag of an ephemeral country—barely trembles.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 07-31-11

SILENCE

SILENCE

This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper. ---From “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot 

By sundown, they will be gone, like long shadows

on my porch walls. All the fierce singing done,

what remains is the quiet murmur of the bourn.

Its stream will not return, nor will the swallows. 

But while they flitted from tree tops to broken

perches, did they not cry out their bravest songs?

These are our elm trees, these are our willows,

we pieced our homes here together, we roosted. 

At the bluffs, we find the edge of the woods muted

now. Soon, even the cackling gulls will dive a final

swoon, catch the last crayfish lost on boulders left

bare by ebbing tide that must also leave its shore. 

It is troths like these that will not last, nothing

endures. The silence can only become a whimper.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-29-11

Prompt: This morning it hits me: how silent the woods have become now with most of the migrants done singing their fierce but temporary attachments.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 07-29-11

A DREAM

I am the dream that flickers beneath the eyelids/of the child who wakes then names the events/that unfold. ---From “What You Don’t Always See” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-27-11 

A DREAM

We were running through rice fields, abuelo,

some of us flying our bamboo-ribbed kites: 

then a billowing red cloud burned my serpent

kite, its long tail falling by the river bank. Aiee! 

What wild wind would wander this way? Why?

It was like a huge face, a very angry face? Why? 

Its scowl and its roaring laughter made us all

scamper, hid under mango trees laden with fruit. 

They kept on hitting us, the falling fruit bombs,

and then there was this big blue bird cackling, 

its quivering beak raised to the darkened sky,

sounding like grandmother  yelling: Callate! 

We would pipe down and hear her protest:

Quiet, quiet! Your grandfather must sleep. 

Would I get my kite back again? I am afraid,

abuelo, but I want to go back to that dream, 

rebuild my broken kite, bathe in that river,

look for the blue bird that scolded the sky.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-28-11

Abuelo – grandfather; Callate!—Keep quiet!

DREAD

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr.

Shrugging off this cool morning’s dread
is as good as some calming camomile tea:
must be some fall breeze breaking through
the corridor of elms fencing the woods in.

Will autumn repaint all this raw sienna
visited upon this valley by fierce sunshine?
How quickly will all this verdance go?
A tardy spring rushed a stampede of green.

Quite like the unbridled sprint of a boy
whistling for wind to buoy his kite beyond
the bourn, this gallop toward dreaded days
of dying and death is a grown man’s dash

through bivouacs of war. Nothing will last:
rainbow palettes on treetops turn grey
before the pall of winter inters carrion
of happy seasons. Or is it just crickets chirping? 

—Albert B. Casuga
07-27-11

Prompt: Another cool morning. Autumn’s in the air, I say to myself, but it’s really just a cricket chirping in the corner of the garden.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 07-27-11

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

Why do we return to/what we know? Do we uncover any anchors/or nets. Homeward bound, /the song goes, which means heading for home/or tied up in looking. ---From “Homeward Bound” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 07-27-11

Cups, bric-a-brac, milestone pictures, pillows,

even rarely-washed security blankets spell it:

it is the smell of knowing that makes us run

to her stove  as soon as we drop our wee world

of toy trains, biscuit cans, disrobed barbies,

and ask if favourite cakes are cooking in the oven. 

It stays with us, this habit of pinning the tail

on memorial behinds. We know them well.

On the darkest nights, on most tempestuous times,

haven’t we gone back home quiet and blindfolded?

They know we would grow up and go away.

Folks enter into one-way contracts like these. 

Then home becomes hazy in uncharted distances.

Looking ties us down, we follow familiar scents

only to lose them along the way. Pavement arrows

do not point to where the heart lingers and stays.

Is there no clear map to this refuge? In the fog,

how can the faithless promise he is home at last? 

An undiscovered country before long, home

turns up around the bend, but we also find out

that it is the nook from which we cannot return.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-27-11

A DIALOGUE ON MIRACLES

A DIALOGUE ON MIRACLES

I saw your image stitched and stuffed as a well-/worn pincushion  with the legend “There/is a place in my heart for you”. ---From “Milagrito: Eye of the Raven,” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-25-11

Was that a heart left askew at the wayside chapel

of the Albuquerque  abbey? Was it an offering

yanked out of a purloined body, a lover’s sacrifice?

Would you do that for me, amor mio, would you? 

What looked like a heart: yes, moulded in silver

melted from old pesetas and Yanqui moneda, an

unlikely blending of borders here where human

traffic routinely includes migrant decapitation. 

Mira, mira: los dedos de plata, los ojos de oro!*

But why is that other heart carved from wood?

And that shrunken head made of brittle wax?

The maze of lines on its forehead are angry cracks. 

Las hechuras de milagritos, these miracle forms,

they, too, have class distinctions: silver and gold

for the rich, wood and wax for the struggling.

Who and what would the gods hearken to? Sabes? 

Then pray, amor mio, that surprises met here

with largesse are not the same as those in heaven.                                                    

---Albert B. Casuga

07-26-11

Amor mio – my love; pesetas, moneda – money; Sabes? – Do you know?

*Look, look: the fingers are made of silver, the eyes of gold.

ANGELUS

ANGELUS 

So long at work,/and teetering from one impossible/task to another. I count and recount/an abacus of spilled grain, water flowing/from a sieve: o gather me now in.---From “Orison” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-24-11 

Sundown was always gleeful for us growing up

around abuela.  It was always time to gather

the clucking hens into bamboo nests tied

on low manzanita* trees, low enough for us

to scoop the scrambling little birds beelined

behind squawking mothers into their perch. 

The chore done, the handsome lady lilts

our boisterous squadron into a sudden

calm: Anyone for rice cakes after prayers?

The magical word was “cake,” not murmured

promises for a reign of peace as it is in heaven. 

On my hammock hour, I replay sundown

tableaus like these radiant remembrances,

(while recollections remain tranquil and clear),

and gather my own noisy bird scoopers, all,

all of them gone now into their own little worlds. 

“Anyone for real stories on when I was young?

Some songs sung as I scooped frantic chicken?

Anyone for tea biscuits after sundown prayers?”

O, for those shadowy things to jump up alive

again from these empty walls. O, for those songs

to chime in again to lull me, and gather me in.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-25-11

*Bird berries that look like little red apples when they ripen.

WIPING HIM DRY

WIPING HIM DRY

(For Louis)

I run my hands over the rough, dry clay,/loving best those surfaces whose cracked /veins might lead divining rods to all/the parched suburbs of the heart.---From “Dowsing”  by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-21-11. 

Almost like a puppy, I muttered. Something

about his rushing to be wrapped with the flannel

in my hands, his quivering wag, and what looked

like a pirouette to catch his tail, invites me to rub

his narrow back: I feel cold, abuelo, he shivers. 

Would the man in Eden have protested coyly?

From the clay he was fashioned, I imagine

he would have undergone some gentle dousing

for the moulder to have pronounced: he is good.

From the rough, dry clay, he rose in splendour. 

As did this wisp of a boy rising from the water,

hallooing: Look, abuelo, I can dive, I can swim!

He wiggled his salva vida floating to the edge,

his face toward the bright blue sky: I am good!

As all grandfathers before or after, I said: You are! 

Oh, you are, my boy. And while I wipe you dry

after this dousing frolic, I run my hands over

your body, cleaning it of any tinge of dry clay,

loathe to think that if I were shaping you

from the mud East of Eden, I’d want you pure. 

Unalloyed, a cherubic imp of a teaser, a laughter

tickled out of a dream, a pure delight,  and clean. 

---Albert B. Casuga

07-23-11

SOMALIA ON MY MIND

SOMALIA ON MY MIND

Overcast at sunrise, with a cool breeze. A gray catbird in the middle of the gray driveway picks pebbles for the collection in its gizzard.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 07-23-11

At sunrise, they rouse their children,
if they have not yet mercifully died,
to trek through desert mirage searching
for oases, cacti, lizards, iguanas, worms,
anything. It’s a landscape of clean bones,
or carrion abandoned by even the crows
that fell prey to the ghastly death march.

I take a guilty gulp at my now tepid tea
when I espy a catbird swallow pebbles
strewn on the sunbaked driveway.
I wonder: can a starving child’s belly
hold as many rock chips to ease pangs
of hunger?  Catbirds prefer these strewn
granules to desert sand, I reckon,
but promptly neglect a morning shrug.

—Albert B. Casuga
07-23-11

RANTING IN AMERICA

Meanwhile in America/the news anchors make a show/of indignation at the sun, righteous/& well-coiffed as fallen angels, &/never speculate why we might/really be so hot, never mention/ that we are blowing up mountains/& burning their black hearts to keep cool.---From “Heat Indices” by Dave Bonta, Via Negativa, 07-22-11

RANTING IN AMERICA

There’s fire in the hills that needs deep dowsing,

there’s fire in the hills that needs good licking! 

A cry for combat, if there was one:  All patriots,

stouthearted sons and lovers, all brave hearts,

from sleepy hamlets to the hungry metropolis,

rally to these stars and stripes. Let’s finish this! 

Meanwhile, in America, its heralds blame the sun

for doing its job of fiercely shining--- not to burn 

the parched villages whence come the spunky lad

now coming home from wars in Iraq or Baghdad-- 

but to nourish those amber waves of grain,

and fill the granaries from California to Maine. 

No, no one blames the blowing up of quarries

in mountains to extract fossil fuel for lorries 

that lumber through the highways of America

bringing to every hearth and home in America 

that same camouflage of a bomb strapped

to every man, woman, or child and snapped 

ready to explode as it has now detonated lives

out of their homes in Arizona, market dives 

threatening bankruptcies that would not respect

Wall Street giants, Bronx tramps, and now expect 

even what used to be the strongest, richest country

on this wobbling planet, to fold up, quit as sentry 

to the peace and quiet of a still lovely blue planet

whose very people might have forced its sun to set 

in the deserts of starving Somalia, bleeding Sudan,

butchered Afghanistan, un-safehouses in Pakistan, 

even in every child’s crying corner labeled  American.

Ah, but the weary hand in the farm is still American: 

There’s fire in the hills, but I’ll lay down my hoe,

bear a bucket, lick that fire. God. See the job through!

---Albert  B. Casuga

07-22-11

LONGING

Childhood trains us/to expect the great ocean/of time around us, /endless, and always more/of it rolling in and away. /... There will always be/another and a next/and an after, even if we/are unable to know about it.---From “After After” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 07-21-11

LONGING 

After after, is there anything or anyone left

to sing the hammock songs? After after,

will you still be there waiting,  a warm blanket

in your hands, to throw the flannel on my lap, 

lest I drool myself to a sundown slumber

and promptly forget it gets cold in the winter? 

Aiee, amor mio, despues de nuestros amores,*

when love is gone, after all the countless days, 

where shall we find that place called after?

If it is lost, too, will there always be another? 

---Albert B. Casuga

07-21-11

*O, my beloved, after all our loves and loving,

CAMPFIRE LULLABIES

CAMPFIRE LULLABIES

Real stories tonight, she says, not/made-up. Like what I did, summers when /I was her age: ---From “Real” by Luisa A. Igloria

(For Chloe and Louis)

1. Then

Something about a canopy of stars

and the darkness among the pines

must turn them into giggling elves
traipsing among the  lantern flies.

Bugs with lit tailpipes, he calls them.

She stifles a guffaw, shushes him:

you will wake the hungry bear up.

Would you want to wake up inside

his swirling stomach? He whispers

under the tangled sheet: tell me more

stories, real ones this time. About

how you and abuela stopped a bus

while crossing the street, and she

gave the yelling driver her fat finger.

2. Now

Here we are, imp of a brother grown

beyond those yarns. Will you tell

your own boy---raucously laughing

all by himself in his dimly lit tent---

the same grandmother stories?

“Once upon a time,” will not do it,

they grow quickly beyond that.

Why not lull him instead with one

of grandfather’s  hammock songs?

“When you talk to these trees,

they will always answer you: Close

your eyes tightly, we will sing to you.”

Here we are, imp of a sister, plotting

lullabies by campfire, when sons beg: 

Will you tell us real grandma stories?

---Albert B. Casuga

07-20-11

A LESSON IN YOGA

A LESSON IN YOGA

(After Letter to Attention)

If this were a glimpse at dying and how the mind,

fragile as it is, could pull one back to life, I would

work at it, break free from cages that have held

me captive, look at the burning sun long and hard

until I am wedded to its brilliance and finally unified. 

This is the vessel that I offer you to have and to hold,

but I must fill it with the salving grace that will mold

my injured spirit back to what I carefully surrendered

for you to mend and nurture when  it had foundered,

lost at some hostile sea, a boat shorn of sail, unanchored. 

Like Pygmalion, I will chisel every jagged chip, remold

every broken edge, to remake this cup, and will unfold

before your eyes like an earthen jar spun out of my hand,

pared clean at its brim, to collect a wellspring of fluid

nectar to last us a lifetime of all that is sweet and kind.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-19-11 

Prompt: Are you still with me?/I know you’re tired, and you want to press /your cheek on the mat or stay supine as a corpse./But the voice nudges you back to the shore, saying /Open your arms and legs like a starfish, open/the cage of your heart; look at the unblinking sun.---From “Letter to Attention” by Luisa A. Igloria posted in Via Negativa, 07-18-11

THE LOST MARKER

THE LOST MARKER

It will remain silent, an abandoned artifact,

a gravestone cross for the perching raven

that would be a swoop away from its repast

before sundown, before it croaks for more,

this yard being empty except for these stones

wrapped in tumbleweed or lost in bramble. 

It has fallen on its side at the foot of the hill

looking limp like a discarded scarecrow

that has outlived its usefulness, a totem pole

piled with the debris of unclaimed markers

bereft of its stories of happy hunting grounds:

it is a forgotten memento like that on Golgotha. 

It is a mere plus sign now as equations have it,

no added trappings, simply subtracted ones,

like a dangling crucifix on the ‘hood boy’s

neck, it is just a bling now, gold hung on gem

stones eked out from scorched quarries by yet

younger boys who would not know the difference.

---Albert B. Casuga

07-19-11

Prompt: When a relationship dies, what happens/to the orphaned plus sign?—From “Artifactual” by Dave Bonta, Via Negativa, 07-18-11