NINGHT MOVES, PUERTO ÁNGEL

NIGHT MOVES, PUERTO ÁNGEL

"nada, nada podrá ser más amargo
que el mar que llevo adentro, solo y ciego."

(nothing, nothing could be more bitter
than the sea I carry inside me, alone and blind.)

Nocturno mar
Xavier Villaurrutia (1903-1950)


I am reluctant,
now, to write poems again.
Ravens take the words,
like bitter bites of rye bread,
out of my mouth and carry

them to the highest
branch in this battered garden
where I am living.
I cannot demand them back,
now, but I can remember

those poems written
at midnight in my little
house above the beach
while Raven sang to the waves
along with Barbieri's

surfing saxaphone
and tiny red crabs climbed to
hide in the tiled roof
until fishing boats crawled out
over the waves of breaking

moonlight through the bay
into the open ocean.
Ten years ago the
sea of possibilities
was as wide as the planet--

now it's the water
tank under the tallest tree
where mosquitoes breed
nocturnal tempests in my
imagination's darkness.