Dark silhouettes of pine, valleys fanned out
as open-sided buses crest the ridge at dawn.
Frost-trails of breath lingering on the coldest
morning of the month so far. Tin shanties hold
their chilled sides close along the hills.
In one, a naked lightbulb: its tungsten
yellow glow above a kitchen sink,
where a grandmother is heating coffee
and putting the eggs in it to boil.
You glimpse her in the window as the bus
rolls by— lit end of her cigar
poised in her mouth, eyes scanning
the day for what warmth it will bring.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Aperture
- Familiar
- Landscape, with Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
- Prognosis
- Listings
- Grenadilla
- Aubade
- El Sagrado Corazon
- Consolation
- Three (More) Improvisations
- Reconnaissance
- The Gift
- Goldfinch in the Garden
- Talon
- What Cannot Eat
- Happiness
- Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser
- Defense
- Petition to Fullness
- Heart you Want to Lead in from the Cold
- Unending Lyric
- Trace
- Prospecting
- Dear modest four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath
- Shit
- Ode to the Pedicure Place at the Mall
- Defiler
- Letter to Attention
- Real
- Discordant
- Dowsing
- Landscape, with Incipient Questions
- Letter to Stone
- Orison
- Milagrito: Eye of the Raven
- Epithalamium
- What You Don’t Always See
- Harbinger
- Going to the Acupuncturist in the Market
- Migrant Letters
- The Road of Imperfect Attentions
- In the Country of Lost Hours
- Morning Lesson
- Reprieve
- Song of the Seamstress’s Daughter
- Landscape, with Construction Worker, Ants, and Gull
- End Times
- Dream Landscape, with Ray-bans and Leyte Landing
- Pantoum, with Spiderweb and Raindrops
- Assassin’s Wake
- Shroud Villanelle
- Dear Annie Oakley,
- Landscape, with Red Omens
- Late Summer Landscape, with Twilight and Daughters
- Ghazal of Unattainable Silence
- Try
- Occasional
- Distance, Then
- Turning
- Noon Prayer
- Acompañamiento
- In the Convent of Perpetual Adoration
- State of Emergency
- Storm Warning
- Charms
- Goodbye, Irene
- The Lovers
- Currents
- Dream of the Four Directions
- Chainus
- Lost Lyric
- Dear recklessness, dear jeweled
- Gleaning
- Bearing Fire
- The Summer of the Angel of Death
(like)
Wonderful.
You glimpse her in the window as the bus/rolls by— lit end of her cigar
poised in her mouth, eyes scanning/the day for what warmth it will bring.
A MOUNTAIN PRAYER
They will come home today, I know that.
It is the coldest morning this month.
That’s when they come and feast on my
rice cakes, that’s when they come.
They will build a little manger in the grove,
out of banana stalks and dried leaves.
Look at that, I burned my lips with the lit end
of my cigar. Could be an omen. Who is ill?
Great Kannoyan, god of my fathers, protect
my little ones, I need them to come home.
On this cold morning, I hope I could share
brewed rice coffee with them before I go.
— Albert B. Casuga
09-16-11
“A Mountain Prayer” is also posted in: http://albertbcasuga.blogspot.com/2011/09/mountain-prayer.html and in the Facebook
Nice poem/story, Luisa, and I enjoyed Albert’s take as well.