Grandfather's Death
On the pillow
the embroidered flowers
are fading
fading that patient spider
my grandmother
who made the best
of losses
bright quilts from rags
that are every bird
Audubon ever killed
in America.
From Field Guide (1973)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Poem 23
Letter to The Butcher
Even after all the times I’ve registered your face
I can’t say I’m familiar. It must be that you wear
your life of dismantling on your torso so I’m busy
wrestling with your invitation to struggle.
Like a distant relative I try to stay
distant and like a distant relative I try
little to understand but I do understand
that I’m the birch and you’re the freeze
so I’m accepting with fighting resignation
that I wear my own dismantling on my torso too.
Like you, I’ve ruined most of what I’ve loved
and it all comes back in the form
of road, failed crops, or waking
like a sad hunger. I’ve been an amateur
in learning the structure of things, the scaffolding
to hearts but when it comes to gutting I’ve got it together
in spades. Master of anatomies, I want to imagine
a life of long harvests, fruitful scavenging
and building new, of putting the life back
into the bodies; there’s no room for apologies now.
Even after all the times I’ve registered your face
I can’t say I’m familiar. It must be that you wear
your life of dismantling on your torso so I’m busy
wrestling with your invitation to struggle.
Like a distant relative I try to stay
distant and like a distant relative I try
little to understand but I do understand
that I’m the birch and you’re the freeze
so I’m accepting with fighting resignation
that I wear my own dismantling on my torso too.
Like you, I’ve ruined most of what I’ve loved
and it all comes back in the form
of road, failed crops, or waking
like a sad hunger. I’ve been an amateur
in learning the structure of things, the scaffolding
to hearts but when it comes to gutting I’ve got it together
in spades. Master of anatomies, I want to imagine
a life of long harvests, fruitful scavenging
and building new, of putting the life back
into the bodies; there’s no room for apologies now.
marlo barrera
january 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
poem 22
New Years Day in the Crescent City
(Self Portrait 2)
At six-thirty a.m. the nine of us are splendid
beasts toward home in the fog. I’ve never seen
such a tired migration be executed
with such beauty, but something in the steps
derived from crude estimations
is a freedom. In a moment
our avian selves are land held
and that’s okay. See: I’m learning to stave off
the somber drunkenness and this walk is a light.
Everyone is a little more tender
this time of night. Like experienced mourners
we brush each other as we pass, hold
each others faces near our own faces,
fold our hands into each others weary hands.
I think that nothing has ever moved as we do.
This is a relief; I see now we are easy
targets for even the smallest assaults: day, light,
the wild. I’m hearing it, the pulsing echo.
After tonight I’m giving up the body.
(Self Portrait 2)
At six-thirty a.m. the nine of us are splendid
beasts toward home in the fog. I’ve never seen
such a tired migration be executed
with such beauty, but something in the steps
derived from crude estimations
is a freedom. In a moment
our avian selves are land held
and that’s okay. See: I’m learning to stave off
the somber drunkenness and this walk is a light.
Everyone is a little more tender
this time of night. Like experienced mourners
we brush each other as we pass, hold
each others faces near our own faces,
fold our hands into each others weary hands.
I think that nothing has ever moved as we do.
This is a relief; I see now we are easy
targets for even the smallest assaults: day, light,
the wild. I’m hearing it, the pulsing echo.
After tonight I’m giving up the body.
marlo barrera
january 2011
i think i will work on this more. i guess we'll see.
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