Dear invisible hand scribing the surface
of this vinyl platter, you usher in a new
soundtrack: buzz of a black-throated warbler,
catbird’s brassy solo. All cool and nonchalant—
but underneath: the faltering notes of what
we want so much to say but can’t. Fluttering
skin, stroked by feathers. If I begged you to stay,
if I begged you to take me away? What then?
But I don’t. In the evenings, the crickets repeat
their two-note arias. Under the trees, fireflies
send stuttering messages across the dark.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Always a Story
- Landscape with Sudden Rain, Wet Blooms, and a Van Eyck Painting
- Letter to Implacable Things
- Landscape, with Cave and Lovers
- Miniatures
- Letter to Self, Somewhere Other than Here
- Ghazal with a Few Variations
- Letter to Silence
- Landscape, with Returning Things
- Postcard to Grey
- Not Yet There
- Letter to the Street Where I Grew Up (City Camp Alley, Baguio City)
- Between
- Parable of Sound
- Letter to Providence
- Glint
- The Beloved Asks
- Letter to Longing
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Twenty Questions
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Interlude
- Villanelle of the Red Maple
- Letter to Leaving or Staying
- Salutation
- Letter to Love
- Letter to Fortune
- Territories
- Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
- Dear season of hesitant but clearing light,
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Singing Bowl
- [temporarily removed by author]
- Risen
- Refrain
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear heart, I take up my tasks again:
- Tremolo
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Risk
- Vocalise
- Interior Landscape, with Roman Shades and Lovers
- Bird Looking One Way, Then Another
- Gypsy Heart
- Like the Warbler
- Landscape with Carillon
- Letter to Ardor
- Landscape, with Salt and Rain at Dawn
- Marks
- Landscape, with Sunlight and Bits of Clay
- Slaying the Beast
- Measures
- In a Hotel Lobby, near Midnight
- Landscape with Shades of Red
- Between the Acts
- Letter to Duty
- Letter to Nostalgia
- You
- Song of Work
- Balm
- Landscape, with Wind and Tulip Tree
- From the Leaves of the Night Notebook
- Letter to What Must be Borne
- Redolence
- Letter to Myself, Reading a Letter
- Night-leaf Tarot
- Trauermantel
- Foretelling
- Aubade, with Sparrow
- Reverie
- Mineral Song
- Layers
- Prayer
- Proof
- Landscape as Elegy for the Unspent
Wonderful, Luisa. So nice to see this appear on the morning of my departure, and know the blog is in capable hands! Hasta luego.
Have a wonderful and fun trip, Dave! Safe travels!
Bon voyage, Dave!
Luisa: lovely.
If I begged you to stay,/if I begged you to take me away? What then?/But I don’t.
A TIRED SALON
It is the dance not the dancer that we enjoy,
don’t we? Take this tremolo that we sing
under our breaths—shall we run off?
Will you take me away? Beg me. Beg me.
But you won’t. Never did. Or will. Will you?
There would be no need for that now—
time has run out on us. The music ends
when lights also fade in our tired salon.
Still, the faltering notes of what we want
to say but can’t—or won’t– -becomes
the stuttering messages lost with the wind
and are faint echoes in an empty salon.
If we can stop the flight of these desires,
Would we hold on to them and not be scared?
—Albert B. Casuga
05-01-11