renascence

Visiting friends

In spite of scarce time, I make it a point to visit my favorite friends' (blogs) every week to see what gifts they may have found along their way. This morning I stumbled upon the comments on Susan's blog and some of the poetry some of her friends had contributed:

I woke from a dream

warm open lyrics

rising gently

flowinglike music’s breath

a precious poet’s sweet grasping voice

howls tender joys

miles timeless clouds

like blessed kisses

on cheeks and faces

held in delicate hopes

until sweet night

and empty darkness

meets yellow light

and morning calm

Roberta

Catherine's Romeo and Juliet Collage for the Altered Art Challenge

and Susan's Haiku? sort of

his heart

wondrous

rare as red sea glass

and mine

the maiden soft

with shadows in her midst

replenishes her stream of Hope

with subtle gifts

of burnished threads

and folded treasured cloths

outcasting all her woes

on us

the kindred ghosts

rustling beside her

written to Cathy Cullis about a month ago

Spanglish

Esto de tener doble nacionalidad..... se siente como una doble personalidad. Sobretodo que es lo Sajon mezclado con lo Latino. No seria tan marcada la diferencia si fuera una mezcla Europea o solo de sangre latina; vivo entre dos mundos y se nota. Hay dias que soy netamente inglesa, coleccionando tacitas de te, inventando un jardin salvaje, otras me suelto como una loca apasionada y bailo hasta el amanecer, escuchando canciones romanticas o leyendo poesias intensas de Gonzalo Rojas.

Amo esos dos mundos por igual; la sutileza del ingles y el desenfreno del latino en un mismo cuerpo balanceandose como un pendulo sobre la llama.

Having dual citizenship feels like a split personality. Especially since it is an Anglo Saxon and Latin mix. The split wouldn't be as marked if it were a mix of only European heritage or a blend of Latin; I live between two worlds and it is noticeable. There are days when I am eminently English, collecting tea cups and inventing my wild garden, others I let down my hair, hang loose and dance like a fool until the break of dawn, listening to romantic songs or reading intense poetry by Gonzalo Rojas.

I love those two worlds equally; the subtlety of the English and the total Latin abandon all in one body swinging like a pendulum above the flame.

Another Poem found in a scrappy notebook

When I write poetry, I usually write in Spanish

AGUDO

Respondiste a mi por impulsos.
Todos fueron acertados.
Me despoje de todo,
entregue el alma para ser tu sueno
en tu dominio, naci de nuevo.

Vi como tu mitad nino queria irrumpir en lo nuevo,
llegar a lo mas alto
aunque implicara metar las manos al fuego.
Y te deje despojar mi tierra fertil,
hiciste de nuevo mi cuento adulto

Al final tu guerra interior
se aferro a tu miedo infantil,
el instinto animal se rindio ante el espino,
la bruma era demasiado densa para descifrar mensajes

Por todo lo que sentimos
en entrana, viscera, corazon y mente
nuestros cuerpos permanecieron,
ajenos a la humedad y al tacto
apenas rozandonos y siempre en huida
recordada como un sollozo
anos y anos de sollozo tras agudo sollozo

Looking through drawers I found....

Encontre esta poesia que escribi hace mas de diez anos fondeado en un cajon,

FUTURO

Paramo de encuentros fugaces,
de frases para el bronce,
de preguntas inciertas,
contigo no pude calzar en la sincronia perfecta

no nos escucho el que esta en el cielo,
estaba en otra parte mas urgente:
en el aqui y ahora,
no en el futuro perfecto

por consecuencia nos regalo
el diario vivir y el morir a diario

por miedo a que?
...a que se quemara el pan a la puerta del horno?
a que cruzaras el umbral conmigo a cuestas,
que se repitieran ilusiones muertas
y la aparicion de otras por abortar?
o la marchitacion de mi dulzura
por lo de las puntadas sin hilo

y en su lugar
me regalo
la cabeza equilibrada
subyugando al corazon
tras eternas conversaciones sobre
templanza, prudencia y ......
tres elementos ausentes a los que hubo de buscarse
en el diccionario de la conciencia

tu has sido
puro inconsciente
libre no
de pecado

hoy cortaron la luz
y no estuviste para alumbrarme
el camino entre el horror y la causa
no estuviste ahi
en el pasillo del laberinto
para guiarme en la ceguera temporal

estabas lejos, recostado
entre la paja
mental
de un dia sabado extremadamente familiar

Constanza en esos dias de nostalgiA

Tratare de pulirla.

Un Canto a Neruda

above courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/mahimashrestha/564782307/

Poetry

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.

Pablo Neruda

and extracts

"beauty is twice beauty

and what is good is doubly good

when it is a matter of two socks

made of wool in winter." From Ode to my Two Socks