Singing at the Gates by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Author:Jimmy Santiago Baca [Baca, Jimmy Santiago]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802122100
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2013-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

SOMETIMES I LONG FOR

THE SWEET MADNESS

The mystery that would spiral

my soul into a seashell

some seafaring explorer

would blow in his coming,

his arrival, his company,

his joy, his discovery.

I carry myself out in winter light

hoping music of any kind finds me,

leads me into its song,

just a note scored on paper

some child somewhere

in some faraway country

cries out at sunrise.

I MOVE THROUGH

the day in a fog, realizing

unless my fingers touch something

I’m lost. Unless I pick up a scent of coffee

or my eye catches the honeysuckle tendril blossom

swaying softly by the outside gate, my life

rattles hollow and haltingly.

I’m used to

passionate engagement, not this boredom.

Even my dog has slowed; how he used to

wander, thrashing out fowl from fields,

barking robustly, blue flames spiraling

from his ears and short tail:

he’s a bird dog in a rabbit world,

and his age is starting to show in his lazy,

closing eyelids, in the way he muses

whether he should rise when I come out

with his food. Could it be this suburb we live in?

We both count the days when we can move again

by the river, well up in the mountains,

away from all this order and structure,

to piss freely in the yard, to lay back on rocks

and stare at the stars, caressing stones

as if they were a lover’s hair.

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