Super Powers
In our wider world of pomp and dollar,
somehow power makes us smaller.
Distracts us from the metaphor
of what a super power’s for.
Those powers we seek In the vast world
wait within us to be unfurled.
In that world we’re given to create,
we hold the key to every gate.
We’re given vision, strength and power
to make a minute of an hour,
to leap ahead or lag behind
in our universe of mind.
I soar the heights. I swim the sea,
and delve the depths to try to free
those powers that I’ve found to be
in that vast space inside of me.
for dverse poets
For sixteen years, I’ve been watching Canadian and American expats flood into Mexico and most, no matter how charmed they might be with Mexico, have the same main complaint—the profusion of VERY LOUD sky rockets that are set off by the thousands during festivals, beginning at the very early hour (by gringo standards) of 6 A.M.
I have a piece myself, written on my first morning in Mexico 22 years ago when my husband and I awoke to what we were sure must be the cannon fire of a revolution in Oaxaca. Alarmed, we sat cowering in our room that thankfully opened onto an inside courtyard until the artillery ceased and the city seemed to awaken to a normal day. Familiar sounds of cars, donkeys, water vendors, gas vendors, vegetable vendors and motorcycles filled the morning air and we ventured out. Knowing no Spanish at the time, there was no one to ask about the early morning sounds of battle until we met another gringo couple in the Zocalo and asked if they knew what the early morning artillery fire had been about. They were polite and didn’t laugh too loud as they explained the Mexican fondness for cohetes (skyrockets) and their purpose.
After moving to Mexico a few years later, I became very well acquainted with their presence not only during holy festivals but also fiestas and celebrations of all sorts: weddings, birthdays, mother’s day, quinceañeras, christenings. After 16 years of living in this country of vivid colors, tastes and smells, noise seems to be as important as any other sensory excess while celebrating and living life. This poem, discovered in the bowels of my computer and written 20 years ago or more, now seems the norm:
San Miguel Morning
The sounds of rooting cats
like infanticide
accompany
tuba music
in 4/4 time.
Fireworks.
Roosters.
Donkey brays.
6:29 in the morning.
All’s right with the world.
If you are curious about just why all these skyrockets are necessary and why the complaints of gringo invaders will always fall on deaf ears, read this excellent article on cohetes by Craig Dietz.
The prompt today was noise.
jdbphoto
Just Beyond My Grasp
When I’ve passed a restless night,
to once more welcome morning light,
I do not leave a lover’s grasp.
No knitted legs need to unclasp.
What time on waking I can afford
is simply spent unwinding cord:
the earbud cord around my neck,
my PC power cord from the wreck
of pillows, comforter and sheet
that somehow, now, are at my feet.
My MacBook Air, just by my shoulder
has come unplugged and so is colder
to my touch. It won’t power on.
Then, when plugged in, my poem is gone.
This is part of a much longer poem written three years ago. The prompt today is grasp.
Upright Midnight
Our night’s rest should meander, releasing us to dreams,
but my sleep took me on a trip down other sorts of streams
with rapids, eddies, waterfalls that jarred me rough awake.
I think that just one night like it is all that I could take.
Whenever I lay prone, I had another bout of coughing—
with one hack executed, another in the offing.
I could not lay my head down to soothe myself to sleep.
Instead I slept bolt upright, my covers in a heap
around me on the sofa as a cough jarred me awake.
Sleeping upright on the sofa does not sweet dreaming make.
I longed for my soft bed and former slumbering meanders
through crisp rows of wheat stalks and banks of oleanders
in search of something still unknown, a peaceful all-night search
for those soulful comforts I never found at church.
My mother’s laughter once again, my father’s joking ways
waiting just around the bend of this nightly maze.
Instead, I’ve barely three hours sleep in between my wheezes—
my dreams propelled by cyclones instead of gentle breezes.
The cold germ is not neighborly. It visits when it pleases
and brings unwanted hostess gifts of drips and coughs and sneezes.
As you may have guessed, I’ve come down with a miserable cold. Two poems in one night, one while I was still trying to stay in bed, then another after I moved to sit upright on the couch which at least furnished a half hour of sleep now and then between the coughing bouts. The prompt today is meander.
I love this silhouette of the fruiting bundle on a palm tree in front of my open-ended garage. It is the sight that greets me each time I drive into the garage and I finally got a photo of it.
For the Sunday Trees prompt.
The Spring Cold Blues
While I should be off-to-sleeping,
instead I’m coughing, sneezing, seeping.
My poor throat is scraped and raw
and herb tea sipped at through a straw
doesn’t seem to help at all.
Tissues rolled up in a ball
litter the table and the floor.
I cough, then blow, then cough some more.
I sweat and shiver and sweat in turn.
Sometimes I chill. Sometimes I burn.
I can’t lie down lest I should cough.
Propped up on pillows, I fall off,
knock tea to floor and break the cup.
No energy to mop it up.
So, with my head still in a fog,
I sit up straight and write this blog.
If I were horse or sheep or cow,
I’d know the secret of just how
I could sleep while still erect,
but since I’m not, I still elect
to sleep while prone whenever I can.
Tonight, it seems, that’s not the plan.
Hey! Just realized this is my 4,000th posting!!!
I thought this was a lantana but now see the colors are right but the leaves and configuration are wrong, so it will remain nameless until someone recognizes it.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
I found this lovely arrangement outside El Jardin restaurant in the Ajijic plaza, where we had our writers retreat.
See Cee’s gorgeous lantana HERE.
