All poems
WINTER MAGIC
Every year we fall for it again:
The first white flakes, ski tracks on
Virgin snow, the new moon shine
On ice-encrusted lakes, rime-
Frosted lawns and shivery dawns,
Wassail and holly and Good Saint Nick.
We never learn that it is all a trick,
A sleight of the Great Magician’s hand
To hide from sight the blasted rose,
The bony skeletons of leafless trees,
Their piles of wilted, sere and crumbling leaves,
Until the last soot-blackened snow patch goes.
OUR DISPATCHER
At the newly painted station
A small boy attaches himself
To our luggage and ties on tags.
The White Star Line bus will,
He assures us, leave on time.
Meanwhile on the pavement,
With shrill cries he alerts
The passersby to the imminence
Of departure for Mexico City
In fifteen minutes. Sure enough,
He is soon loading our bags
And being reimbursed again.
As the bus pulls out, he
Comes down the aisle with
A basket of tortillas
And writes out tickets for
The four senoritas who heeded
His recent announcements.
With regret, on the outskirts
Of San Miguel, we observe
The young entrepreneur
Taking his leave.
GOING IN STYLE
The boys in Mexican glassworks
Swing their blowpipes in parabolas
Like gauchos twirling riatas,
Eliciting form from incandescence.
Precise as ballet dancers,
They make their moves at intersecting
Routes, aware but casual,
Nothing between the flesh and the flame.
The boys in Mexican bullrings
Entice the dark charger with magenta capes
Like women flirting with handkerchiefs.
Their suggestive invitations
Invite a close encounter:
Nothing between the hip and the horn,
They dance a tango with destiny,
Teasing entropy into art.
EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS
(THE DAY OF THE DEAD)
The skull is an old preoccupation.
Hamlet spoke to Yorick, and
Pre-Columbian burials yield
These tiny tokens, mementi mori,
And aboriginal poets lamented,
With Ecclesiastes, the briefness of flowers:
They knew that man is born to die.
All their funerary postures –
Bodies flat or flexed, singular or
Communal, came to the same conclusion.
Children today make sugar skulls
For dolls they dress in pastel papers,
White hands protruding from sleeves.
They set out candy for the dead,
Sweet imitations of bread and fruit,
Refreshments for the long journey,
And visit skeletons in the crypts,
Dusty bonnets on infant skulls,
Holding reunions with family bones.
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.