Tuesday, February 25, 2020

MEXICO CITY POEMS



A WEEK IN MEXICO CITY

CAFE MORNING

The waiter opened the second story window near our table, and I heard a bird singing.  I walked over and spotted a nest woven into a tangle of wires on a wooden utility pole, maybe ten feet away.  A chickadee (I call most tiny birds chickadees,) stood peeping on the edge of the nest.  I looked away, and back, and it was gone.  There was enough activity inside the nest to cause it to shake, though there were no visible chicks.

I motioned Reggie over, and we watched for a few seconds when the chickadee shot out of the nest, flew straight toward the open and barred window, and in two blinks rocketed up and out of sight.  For that moment it seemed as big as a hawk, and supersonic, and its effect was like splashing cold water.

We looked back at the nest, laughed, enjoyed the moment, and went back to our breakfasts.

02.17.20

***

Ichigo Ichie (Japanese)
          One encounter, one chance

Maybe the last chance

We will never

and

those who
most fervently say
they will
never seem to

The water is wide.

Those three blocks
to the neighbor’s house
may never be traveled again

and the six steps

up
to
her
door
may
be

an Everest
to summit.

One encounter, one chance.

What would you like?

One encounter

          gentle
          rushed
          angry
          pleasant
          forced
          violent
          sweet
          bitter
          direct

                    kind?

One chance to

          conspire
          confound
          connect
          correct
          create
          cajole
          clarify
          chastise
          cull

                    carress?

One encounter before the mirror
          one chance to clearly see…

02.18

***
I’m in
continual
mourning

as
losses
layer
upon
losses

in a daily theft
of our common wealth.

It’s a
minute-by-minute

degradation

of what we thought
was sacred.

But –

move along
there’s nothing new
to see here.

It’s all for

the love-of-a-buck

need for a burner

desire for the latest.

Seven billion of us
who all want

something.

02.19

***

TEOTIHUACAN

Squats in

space
&
time

Not my heritage
not my memory
not locked
into my
meat or bones

yet

here I am

a late arrival
to a civilization

that
reached
for
water

&

fell
into
sky

Serpents
Jaguars
Hungry Gods
Corn

Adamantine City
bathed in blood

Cosmologies
of stone

80,000
souls

vanished

gone.

02.20

***

KIDS ARE DRAWN

to wonder.

Earth magic
comes easy.

What’s found
on forest floors
or washed
onto beaches
are powerful things

shells and feathers
bones and stones

worth collecting
and keeping safe
in cigar boxes
with hooks and eyes
to hold them squarely shut.

Traveling with parents
stopping at road side stands
or beachfront stores
finding dusty things
that once were magic
now desacrilized
and as devoid of power
as shuttered churches

No Sale – but thank you, ma’am.

In time
most treasures
are forgotten
stored in attics
or basements

though some few magi
have carried them
from home to home
like household gods

Wherever they rest
in boxes, on mantles
or on altars

they are charged

and emit
a subtle

hum
and
light

that may attract
a kid who senses

power

and with a touch
sets a piece
of the holy world
back into place.

RW
02.23.2002
Mexico City






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