Butterflies

There are days, like a skirt left open,
dark and blue
from the rummage of last night;
but somehow these do not count, and butterflies

soon will fly away. But those in between
a yes --- always an echo,
a disposable cry to forecast how deeply
the ground's seed has taken root.

II

These
butterflies
surrender all vanities (even your
raft on the Okeechobee River).

Deep in the woods
the mist ties hands with the branches and
one breathes and
smiles and forgets about storytelling.
 

Location No. 4

I like a job under the sun
growing bell-peppers or onions
in a place like Ft. Myers.
And then search for the seasons.

The scattered land
that speaks softly with the rain,
the marshes and the workings of life. I'd like to move around
my whole person.

The greenery I'd like to explore
randomly like a sorcerer looking for the magic herb.
And I don't question
whether you're going my way.

Slopes have cutting edges all around
leading to a road with no turn.
There are bushes of strawberries somewhere, but the blinding
sun (I'd rather talk about shadows ---

the dampness creates a vapor
of days that have gone)
because after all I do proceed
with the desire, the vanity

that the berries will be ripe and pomegranates will appear,
tangelos having bloomed with nobody in mind.
As long as there are flowers
and a story.
 

North Carolina, 1982

Oh, how many passages one must go through.
And come back to.
There are no dilemmas.
There are passages, that's all.
And yet
When it's time for the moon to shine
There is no room for others
Searching or looking or just traveling
On the same road, with you.

If the snow (or a distant cousin)
Would come down
And prepare a soft blanket
With the chimes
That the weather alone can prepare
Well, then,
To seat in someone else's couch
While the light filtrates
All the noises ---

Some real old-fashioned fussing
Cold and green, like a kiss forgotten
In your vest-pocket.
Traveling all these miles
To arrive in your golden state
Covered with white
Props
That the sky
Forgot
On its way down.

And my fervor rebounds
And comes back golden like the earth
Quiet like the sky
Full of mirages
Full of nostalgia
Like the half step
Under my skirt pulled up on one side
Showing on its back
All its memories
All its hopes
With green
Parsley
In a vase on the back-porch
To put in the soup or to lighten a salad for lunch
And the air
Stringently surpassing even the fastest driver on her way to midnight mass.
Oh, how much I love winters.
And yet, I really don't know its bellows
With the icicles
And a whole new vista with sweaters and coats.

And I recognize your smile
In the nest of these mountains
In those words slurring down
With a joke
In between. It was cold, like tonight,
In those mountains
And the fire burning
Was
An anecdote
Of your wooden hut.

It tells of many fairy-tales
Suspended
Interrupted by my voice. How far
Can a whistle travel in your hand.
The footprints
Get carried away
And the snow insists
With this triumphant plenitude
And I travel with it.

How could you have left these hills
And come down
To barter
Your trade for beads.
There is no snow where your foot has traveled.
There is a white aura around the bark
But the land is barren.
It's the voice of scruples
That speaks
When the weather permits

But
Years and years
Do not reveal or uncover
Do not let go
Gracefully
Like the milk squirting in the pail
Of the rising moon
Quietly sending off
Discreet messages
To the night to come.

What does one see
Is there
Like the mud on your feet.
What's the insight that the earth gives you
To disguise
To discard
One lapse of light
And to do
Or to undo to others
What life has abundantly carried on.

For a while
The moon and the birds
Go on or go off on their own
But they return, the birds,
At the hunting season.
They know
It is time
And your grin is up there in the sky
Ready to blow trumpets in the season to be merry.
Like the sign of a hand.
Go back home.
Pick up the dust you gathered in this land.
In the colors behind the sun or behind
These infernal mangroves.
Memories are out in the cold
Without the sporting malice of leaves turned too fast.
And listen
To the wind, there is a passage
In the air. So much snow
Will have fallen by now.
 

The Black Forest

To celebrate with the birds the answers to the riddles engrained this far.
In the wilderness.
Those trees, a most intricate surrender,
seldom recognized.

Passing through the foliage
ever rustling.
And the scent of ravaging bushes (linear they are not).
Waiting for the colors to possess them.

(I guess the suspicious nature of the fall --- nearby --- could not deal with
all those layers of longing).
The fog thick and fleeting plays around with the high treetops
and our hearts beat faster, as the light filters through without past rancor.

With the rumbling of the deep waters our pores absorb events with no name.
Birds know that we will move on and fold our tents
and yet deep inside will be the dark green of the treetops and
the unyielding brown terrain.

As the hummingbirds, their young ones,
(to renew or to feel again what's left)
are calling or doing their celebratory probing
before taking off in the grand sky.

Stars and Dice

And I feel the motion
which colors for a while. All the Pericles lost at sea at night when the boats
moor in deep waters and the light
fights for attention with the eyes of the prophets
raising hands
over the sea, walking on the balmy peninsula.

All is quiet, after rain-calls.
Air too hot for my feet. Relinquish
and smile, and begin like a Bedouin
in the desert --- the sack filled with memories
and dangling
hopes.

And the waters still move
my thoughts over the bland melody of the night.
Backgammon is the sport
and a port appears far at the night's end.
---- Put down all the chips on the table
and I'll call the queen (the figure
roaming across the fields picking flowers for her hair).

The boat is firm in the waters.
And my arms' reach is the stretch
the limit of the houses far in the distance.
And all the while the stratagem is for the earth to keep its promises
joyful and plain
over fables of long ago.

I'll silence the stars for a while and
into your arms that gravitate like a meteor in my fields.
---- Backgammon is over, shut the light.
The cadence of the waves reaches beyond all the spectacles that nature has proceeded to embark,
but mine's ready to catch the colors of my lap. Circles
are those of the waters, with your persistence, two lines in one.