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.

April 2013

Chihuahua ravens
in my garden wake me up
to break up their bread.
An unkindness of ravens
they are--only slightly more

sophisticated
than a murder of crows--but
unmated brothers
returning every spring
to help feed the new ones seems

so charitable
that I make myself get up
and put out breakfast
in a tray on my back porch.
While I'm making coffee they

swoop down for the bits
of sourdough, then head for
the jacaranda.
Cackles and coffee convince
me to accept my own life.