Tell me again that story of the woman by the well,
and of the wanderer who asked to drink from the dark water.
On the banks, river stones gleam like cut topaz, like milky agate or
ovals of smooth amber— such contrast against the dark water.
In the kitchen above the shed, the stove comes to life and a kettle
whistles. Tea or coffee grounds swirl, darkening the water.
Squares of paper hang like laundry on an indoor clothesline.
Someone is waiting for prints to batten in trays of dark water.
Small birds migrating from sleep cluster near the windows—
Don’t eat the merest kindness, like bread thrown upon dark water.
Juncos fill the lilac, nearest cover to the stream’s unfrozen section.
Five or six at a time, they flutter down to drink from the dark water.
Who keeps filling this earthen pitcher? Once and for good
I’d like to break it on the hearth and pour out all the dark water.
—Luisa A. Igloria
01.21.2011
In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Stay
- “Findings”: the missing Morning Porch poems
- Two more Morning Porch poems from Luisa Igloria and a comment on free culture
- What Leaf
- With winter’s gift of unimpeded sight,
- Aubade, with Feathers
- Scherenschnitte
- Solstice
- Heart and Shadow
- “The sudden spasm of wings”
- “Before sight, sound—“
- Four Morning Porch poems
- “Up and down the street, the neighbors…”
- Memento Mori
- “The streets are lined with garbage bins…”
- “Soon the old year must join…”
- Speaking of __
- Postcard
- Wake
- Despedida de Soltera
- Filament
- “Paired or unpaired, all in the world…”
- Vertices
- Graupel
- Auguries
- Closer
- Menage
- Preludium
- Instructions
- Consonance
- Rosary
- Forager
- Photogram
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Landscape, With Darkness and Hare
- Landscape, with Cardinal and Earring
- Intention
- Ghazal of the Dark Water
- One Day, That Room
- Landscape, with Small Flakes and Far-off Bandoneón
- Sentence
- Spun
- Intercession
- Recurrence
- Landscape, with an End and a Beginning
- Waking
- Thaw
- Spell
- Dim Sun, Dim Sum
- Vanishing Point
- Monday Landscape, with Clocks Borrowed from Dali
- “Last night’s wet snow…”
- Ephemera
- Landscape, with Water Fountain, Small Clouds and Endless Lyric
- What She Wants
- Landscape, with Mockingbird and Ripe Figs
- Letter to Arrythmia
- Love Poem with Skull and Candy Valentines
- Letter to Affliction
- Letter to Levity
- Thaw
- Letter to Rubbermaid and Tupperware
- Letter to Spam
- Ellipsis
- Nave
- Little Waking Song
- Imminence
- Letter to Water
- Letter to Green
- Meditation on a Seam
- No Two
- Ghazal of Burgeoning Things
- Deseo
- Petition for Something Other than White
- Letter to the Hungry Ghosts
Beautiful!
Like this–and am enjoying the back and forth with Morning Porch.
Thank you, Marly and Christine. I’m a beneficiary of the creative collaboration as well.
Yes, it is an interesting way of making yourself more fruitful, this discipline of responding…
Exactly. It makes me feel slightly monastic ;) in terms of that idea of discipline.
I too have been enjoying the call and response. Thank you for the introduction to the ghazal form. I’ve been away from literature for so long, but you and the morning porch have become a daily fix and are bringing happy discoveries with you.
Thanks for your good words, Mariko; I look forward to the daily writing.