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 For Rati in Kerala
who says "Write
a snow poem."
My pen I reply
is full of ice.
She says it is the desert
of her homeland
that instructs her.
For breakfast I drink
mango and tamarind juiice
and spread orange
marmelade across
my toast ignoring
the cold white drifts
piled deep
upon the earth
and treacherous ice below.
I sip a bit of the tropics
and think about that desert
where sand moves restlessly
with the wind into
shapes I do not know.
Letter from Haiti to the Dead
for Walter and Sophia
Who are always with us. Just beyond a curtain of
belief/disbelief. Beyond reach of a hand certainly.
I miss you in this hot country, this troubled island in a blue
sea where I am trying to see. What do I understand with my
northern eyes I must peel like a grapefruit. Then the juicy
flesh between my teeth.
I want to tell you the story of legendary breadfruit growing
plump, green loaves in this difficult city. I want to whisper of
mangoes, ripe, and sorrow, too. Here backbone and belly do a
scraping dance.
Two boys stand barefoot in a dirt courtyard, slippery and wet
from a Sunday bath. Where does poetry come from, all gardens and
green growth, but the dirt, which is lost to the sea without
strong roots?
Dirt, poetry, gardens. These you gave me.
Never mind the sweet scent of incense you said, breathe the
sewer stench until the whole world grows holy and all people are
fed.
I am far from the northern woods where your ashes are scattered
but what does distance matter? Dirt is dirt. In that glacier
licked land the sun stirs the first soup of spring. Here it
bakes everything.
Rest first teachers and friends, while I root my heart in the
earth and breathe the sandalwood permeating the street.
Christina Pacosz
Kansas City, Missouri USA |
