Series: Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2010-11

My parents owned an inexpensive set of china
showing a world glazed in blue and white: a few
three-tiered pagodas, thumbnails of gardens
planted to peach or willow trees. Villagers
crossed footbridges presumably to the next
town beyond the rim of the dinner plate,
and fishermen dipped their nets in placid
water. A woman sat at an upstairs window
reading a book, or doing sums, or writing
in a journal. A man cooled his bare feet in
the shallows, not doing anything much.
It was always dawn or dusk, and small birds
flew toward a miniature sun above the trees.
They could not have gone too far
from the periphery, nor pierced the convex
glass of the dome that rested on the plate—
so then what is that smudge on the sill,
what has become of the woman who once
sat there with her inks and scrolls?

—Luisa A. Igloria
03 17 2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Today a poet read these words transcribed
from a different language: “Mi destino intermitente”
—and a door opened into a garden where the weather
was overcast and damp, but things were growing:
for instance, new leaves of lamb’s-ears looking delicately
furred, alive, alert. We passed through and touched
the dark veins of flowers pulsing on the vine, caught
our spindle-shaped reflections— fusiforme—
in puddles of water. Sometimes the world bends to
your position. The wasp returns to its nest and
finds it in tatters. Sometimes it is enough to live
in the complicated arc between losing and finding,
enough to gather what sweetness remains.

—Luisa A. Igloria
03 16 2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

“…When you lose something,
it’s so you can learn how to search.”
—Dean Young

No sign of the spoon— and the fork and the knife
on a string— that he lost as a child

No sign of the furry brown bear— with the real
glass eyes— that I took to bed at night

No sign of the phoebes— they came to dip
for water— that were here yesterday

No sign of the robin— it rang and rang— that embroidered
its banner with song then fell strangely silent

No sign of the little stone buddha— and his necklace
of rosy children— that cracked on the pavement
when it fell from my pocket

No sign— but blue scales on the kitchen floor—
of the fish that jumped from the bowl by the open
window, startled by the barking of the dog next door

No sign of the moon— though I know it’s about to poke
over the horizon— big like a woman with child

No sign of the cordillera— though I glimpsed mountain-
and-valley pleats tattooed under the poet’s collar

No sign of the fog and its blue signature— I cannot see
my own breath— curled beneath noon’s yellow shawl

—Luisa A. Igloria
03 19 2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.