DETACHMENT
Like gods in ancient Greece, tourists
Survey the scene from points of vantage:
They sit on balconies, peer into courtyards,
Photograph wedding parties in archways.
Darker skins and liquid syllables
Charm them, but eyes do not exchange
Signals. They risk nothing. Soon enough,
They will be winging back to Olympus.
NO TRESPASSING
In San Miguel the walls
Are thick and high and topped
With shards of broken glass:
Translucent, they glint in the sun.
Above us on the hillside,
Ranks of towering cacti
Guard their fruit with poisoned
Darts ready to fire.
Although young boys can climb
The organ pipes, unscratched,
To pick their small berries,
They do not scale the walls.
INCONGRUITY
The grackles that chimed like a thousand cuckoos
At six o’clock have retired, but one
Splatters his hand as he sits on the bench
Under the box-shaped tree in the park.
A mariachi band tunes up for a wedding
In the cathedral across the street.
Balloon vendors bounce their punching-bag faces.
Strolling teenagers banter and laugh.
Then an American hard rock group,
The Misguided Youth, begin to check
Their mikes. The woman drums a roll.
He leaves ahead of the opening absurdity.
TWO VIEWS FROM A BALCONY
(1)
A Thornton Burgess old lady, toad in a shawl,
She leans forward to peel the cactus pears:
Three quick cuts and canvas flaps unfold
From the beet-red fruit, tasteless and seedy.
Church bells clang the quarter hour. Iron
Shoes clink on cobblestones. Unhurried
By smacking stick or placid curse, burros
Shoulder sacks of mesquite from the hills.
(2)
The artists of the Revolution
Painted workers massive across
The back , with Popeye arms and hands.
Carved in stone, their heads were bowed.
This crew constructing reservoirs
On the roof across the street are whistling.
Onto their slender shoulders they lift
The tins of cement as light as ballerinas.
EVENING BALLET
Foot-lighted by fluorescent
Jacarandas more purple than amethysts,
Against a backdrop of sunset
And mountains, the egrets
Perform in black pines:
Backflap for landings, soar
With tightly curled necks, and
Like slim ebony carvings
Balance on tree tops.
Their roof-top audience
Of American writers,
Refueled with creative juices,
Applaud along with yawping nighthawks.
LA HIJA GRINGA
Annie helps the shoeshine boy.
They have long talks in the garden,
Where a boy she does not know
Hands her his heart on a string of beads.
She invites Amaro and Carlos to
Experiment with swimming in her pool.
They borrow trunks from her father.
Over an endless box of Ritz, Amaro
Confides he sometimes feels left out.
So does she, Annie tells him.
They dance long hours at the disco:
Annie and C.C. with Mosco, Lechuga
And all the Jackals, who laugh
When they call her Arana (Spider).
Sometimes the boys urge the girls
To dress up. Annie prefers jeans.
But at the Halloween party she wins
Second prize as Ana the Banana.
GOOD FRIDAY PARADE
After an hour on the curbstones,
Villagers in Sunday best,
Fathers tossing babies and buying
Ices licked by children, politely
Declined by tiny grandmothers,
See men in black suits issue
From the church portals:
Ten steps and a pause
For the bearer to rest.
Christ on His cross is a burden
To heavy to be borne by
Sidewalk poor, who may merely
Sprinkle herbs on paving stones.
Though among the Roman soldiers,
A small tough centenarian
Pipes wandering melodies
On an Indian flute.
Now tinseled, innocent
Child brides, excited
Virgins in white lace,
Carry small guilty symbols:
The cock and the dice.
And rows of black poppies:
Mothers in black mantillas,
Black hems high or low,
Totter on spike heels,
Platforms or thin-soled pumps.
How can they support these terrible
Angels wielding spikes
For their god’s feet?
Children again – choirboys
In purple collars, young
Heralds, announce the ponderous
Gold and glass casket. Mary,
Joseph and Magdalene follow,
And last the empty cross is
Mourned by the holy-day crowd.
THREE VIGNETTES
(1)
It is uncouth to jolt
In a Ford LTD over
The cobblestones of
San Miguel de Allende.
Along such passageways,
The dusty sandal
Proceeds with more grace.
(2)
Vitamined and mineraled,
The gringo father and daughter
Stride in holy day processions
Behind black-manteled, ancient
Women so bowed by arthritis
Their eyes see only dust.
(3)
Playing maid on Estrella’s day off,
Hanging clothes in the garden,
Wary of an inquisitive grackle,
I step around rosemary, high
As spreading juniper, and admire
Lettuce – wavy red and knots
Of Boston green – next to
Flowerets of purple thyme.
EL COLECTIVO
(THE COLLECTIVE FARM)
Two farm boys, careless of typhoid,
Bounce on braying burros and trade
Obsidian arrowheads for pesos.
Piglets scatter. A vermillion flycatcher
Flies over the prickly pears.
Grandfather in white suit and
Sombrero signals the German
Shepherd to round up the herd..
Horses trot downhill among
Mesquites which goats on hind legs
Mount in search of moist mouthfuls.
Dry grass and dusty furrows
Must wait yet another month
Until the rains may or may not come,
While out in the purple valley
Unreachable reservoirs gleam.
A sailboat crosses at sunset.
REPAIRING CAIRNS ON MT. WASHINGTON
We are constructing castles
Of stone on an alpine meadow.
Sunlight rich as butter
Ignites mica in granite.
High and small, blue-black
Ravens waft past.
Drinking champagne air
We scan sparse grasses
For large but liftable boulders,
Glacier-dropped chips
Off the old mountain block
No longer Himalayan high.
A Cheshire mason’s son
Ad-libs British quips
As we stagger back, arms
Stretched, strapping stones
Against our thighs like refrigerators
Belted to dollies. He drops
The rocks in their sockets
Just so, broad, level and sturdy
Enough to hold up the upper
Stories. The pyramid reaches
Its peak. He bounds on top.
Kodaks capture the moment.
Once in Peru on the hills
Above Lake Titicaca we saw
Such chimneys of fieldstone
But rounder on top and taller:
Local dignitaries’ towers,
Wolf-proof bone repositories
Rippled by sere sedges,
Pre-Incan time capsules
We chose not to open,
Landmarks on the hard-packed
Pathway to Elyssian fields
We were not prepared to follow.
Our cairns today escalate
Our spirits on our high way
And lead us to the blustery summit,
Blistered but lighthearted,
Knowing that some fogbound,
Windswept, rain-driven hiker
Will hunker down behind them,
Lay on thankful hands,
Peer cloudily from marker to marker,
And whistle as he descends
To sheltering evergreen hedges
And the canopy of oak and birch.
Fifty pounds of bark chips on my pack board
Slant me forward, thumbs under shoulder straps,
Eyes fixed on last year’s beech leaf carpet
Softening the old lumber road that knifes
The Pemigewasset Wilderness like a tunnel of light
In an early death experience. My small companion
Carries over one third of her body weight.
Crossing rivers, we topple off stepping stones
And feel the icy mountain silver sluice
Our toes inside our socks inside our boots.
We’re loaded with fuel for a composting toilet
At Thirteen Falls campsite, five miles
Beyond the closest forest service road.
Balanced on half-log bog bridges,
We pause by a pond to look for moose. Another
Month and beavers, those flat-tailed engineers,
Will have submerged the trail. “Get psyched!”
Calls our leader: “Only three more miles to go!
Water break at the next bend of the river!”
By now we feel a boot-deep relationship
With Franconia Brook. We pop sourballs
And tramp on. Canada winds lift
Shingles on our leafy roof, leaking in sunlight
And puzzle pieces of blue sky. Esprit
Balloons us up the last rocky slope.
“Only two more football fields to cross!”
Our big black bear charges ahead,
Encouraging directives drifting in his wake.
“Right turn to the latrine, left to the falls!”
On sun-scoured New England granite
Recliners, we spread out our lunches and dip
Our water bottles in the crystal cascade,
As the stream glissades down glacial slaloms.
WINTER BACKPACK
Tentative fingers of dry sleet
Tap on our cheeks in the twilight.
We tie our tents to tree limbs
And cook by lantern light.
White moths tick on nylon.
We sleep away the dark
And wake to clarion sunshine
Domed by cobalt glass.
Our snowshoes write our thoughts
On unmarked pages twined
With notes of hooves and paws.
But when we pause for breath
And look up, we are skylarks
In a silvery-netted aviary,
By blueness mesmerized.
On the ridge we become giants,
Our heads level with rows
Of crystal-coated bonsai
And balsam bowed by snow.
Floundering down the mountain,
Our big feet swallowed in drifts,
We marvel at undulations,
Tide ripples sculpted by winds
Which roar that night down the valley,
Express trains passing our camp,
Reminding us of Himalayan
Climbers marooned in tents.
But these winds are siroccan:
They black out cities of stars
And brew a broth of fine rain
By the time we reach our cars.