San Diego Harbor, October 18, 2014.
to my single reader:
perhaps one day soon
i will tell you about puerto rico, taíno heart, and driving into méxico at midnight
like two fugitive moths
the indio angels
perhaps i will share the secret tales
of a heart that keeps returning
to the south
and reading poetry as an act
of revolution.
i did not forget. i am not gone.
i never gave up.
artists cannot stop seeing and sharing beauty, no more than poets can stop feeling and bleeding ink.
it is not a choice for us.
understand that a pen lies dormant sometimes, oftentimes,
only to gather strength, and stories,
like our souls.
only to heal.
the vessel eventually spills over.
i will tell you about calabria, my tierra, my fisherman father, then new mexico, the beautiful natives of this country, their poignant song…and the lines i wrote
at ten thousand feet
they might make sense
once stitched together.
i will talk about
traveling as an act of infinite love
to heal, to forgive, to archive
yet never, never forget (i will never let you go, hold you into the light)
but i will never say a word.
there will be more photos than drawings, please forgive me.
there will be, more often than not, no explanations, and little context [as in life]
accept these scattered offerings.
what is the music that one hears
as we change skin?
i can only bring back
dispatches.
the giving of one’s self
receiving infinite blessings
and signs
i will find a way to share this
hiding my hands, covering my mouth.
breaking awful tiles on that grey vinyl floor ! and every instance that made me thankful
for a heart that was broke open
like a seed that could finally flower.
for a traveling soul
that will always eschew expediency
for narrative.
but not tonight.
tonight is not the night
for everything to be told.
it’s a start, a shy coming back
after months abroad.
the new world, the old world.
i return to the shuttered home,
look at these years
stacked in neat boxes,
wrapped with care, once.
a gift from ourselves, to ourselves.
it is time to return,
harvesttime is once upon us, and finds me stronger.
it is time to shake the dust covers, unpack
and finally, finally move in.
there is never enough time to do housework, single reader,
but i figured you know
it is not the thought of unfinished laundry
that keeps me up at night.
sketchbloom.com 