Salutation

This entry is part 26 of 92 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2011

My heart bows to the field streaked
by the sun’s rare currency this morning

to the worries that call my name
over and over like I am their favorite child

to the ridiculous kindness
of the wild turkeys’ chatter

to you who’ve called
me stranger, friend, lover

to you who’ve sung me to sleep
and kissed me in doorways

to you who’ve made space
for me on this window-ledge of words—

And you on the edge of the field, I bow to you
all in shadow, your patience outlasting us all

About

Via Negativa is a unique experiment in daily, poetic conversation with the living and the dead. Dave Bonta founded the site in 2003 and Luisa A. Igloria joined in 2010. Guest authors contribute as well. Dave writes daily erasure poems to discover the poetry hidden in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Luisa has been writing and posting a poem a day since November 2010, often in response to Dave’s entries at The Morning Porch. Collections of poems first published at Via Negativa include Luisa’s The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis and Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser, and Dave’s Ice Mountain and Breakdown: Banjo Poems. Read more…

Kat says:

April 14, 2011 at 4:33 pm

Oh, this one is particularly lovely.

Albert B. Casuga says:

April 14, 2011 at 9:09 pm

A VALEDICTION

All that it takes to remember that I am still with you
is this morning’s sun, glaring from a clear blue sky

and I have never absconded, never left your side
even when I found myself at the edge of the field

merely a part of your life’s curious appurtenances,
someone you’d remember when the muezzin calls

from his minaret, or angelus intoned from emporia
microphones, or when the dry season lends penitence

its hauteur from random worshippers of a crucifixion
forgotten in the hill of skulls, a mocking flagelation.

I will be there when litanies of pain fill your evenings,
I will be there when you lose all faith in love or dreams.

At the edge of the field, I will be there, waiting for you
in the shadows, until you finally stop running away from me.

—Albert B. Casuga

a sacro

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