New opportunities and new poems

It has been a long time since I've posted - I've been lax about it as I've dedicated more time to other pursuits, not least of which is that grand masterpiece named "Marco!" But I'm excited that I will now be blogging at least once a month for www.buildaltars.com - the fabulous creative/magic forum of my fabulous artist friend Heather Bleasdell. I'll link my posts there to this blog. Meanwhile here are a couple of newish poems to keep you entertained.

I wish sometimes

I wish sometimes, futile like rain on asphalt,
to live in the Hudson Valley, imagining myself
glowing in the aura of light that sifts through the pink
grassblades of early morning autumn hoarfrost, and I
am the fox slinking along the field’s edge into the cover
of a red forest. The leaves are about to be laid bare, crumpled.
Because here I live in Mexico, in a village with the name
of a saint, like all villages in Mexico, unspoken native
names tucked behind like a tail between their legs.
I came here by wish, or because I simply gave up
pushing against the strong arm of the universe and the houses
of stars that lined up along the Milky Way to say,
you will live in Mexico. I like to call it
choreography, created just for me, and I,
who am so clumsy, try to dance it, try to move in time
down long gray streets of cinderblock, nodding
to the ladies who move in their eternal daily pattern
from butcher shop to fruit stand, from tortilla shop
to elementary school, from vegetable stand to bus stop.
And the ladies nod back, watching me. I look
at the maguey, coming too close and bleeding
from the thorns, and their gray-green leaves are not
gray-green, but pixilated, thousands of tiny green dots side
by side with thousands of tiny gray dots, and so my eyes
see an illusion, leaves laid bare, crumpled. The October
spiders are born already and string their cord from thorn to thorn,
painting fine mandalas that sway in the wind and stay
strong in rain. They are everywhere, and I wish
I, too, could be reborn each year.


La Divina Infantita

I know from 4 blocks away
that there are empty bottles backstage
by the way the songs are lazy, blurry
and the band talks more than sings.
2 a.m. is way past bedtime
for this baby, the Divine Girlchild,
La Divina Infantita, on her birthday night.
Shuffling old men trudge her out to the dust
of the village soccer field in a glass case. They crown
her with an arch of pink balloons, and trombone
players, tubas and trumpets squawk a serenade
behind her. She never opens her eyes, sleeps
forever, but they take her anyway, to watch
the fireworks, shudders of burning gold
dust, fiery red and green balls shaking out
the stars, her eyes closed to the night sky
of clouds skiffing across a halfmoon.
She looks inside herself instead, swaddled
in gold embroidered robes, dreams wrapped up
behind porcelain eyelids, behind airbrushed
rosiness on delicate white cheeks, behind little dollies
and teddy bears brought as offerings, birthday presents
to the god inside the girlchild. I want to tap
on the glass, know the Mother Mary hiding inside.
I want to know whether ascension robbed her
of cronehood. I want to take an eternal
baby in my arms and dream her dreams. I want
to wake her up and hear her cry in hunger,
because everybody is hungry here,
thirsty. There are empty bottles behind the stage
and broken hearts stumbling into the
dusty fields, into the dark corners of night, far
from the church to which She goes home.

Sept. 13, 2010