In sunshine
it rains on occasion
cloudburst's choice
           invasion
catching some with muddy shoes
and others
singing joyful celluloid songs

another cold mud month
does not discriminate
sporadically choosing victims
                 once
to the many fallen
channeled
red rivulet's ruin

April,
where are your poppies,
moments of silence?
tears, showers copy,
if dammed would over flood
howling grief's tsunami
pain pressing each drop
to say they did not end it
            sooner

-cec

Your compound eyes
see compound dyes
that color your allies
and predator's lies
from puffy pupil stage
to hairy back and legs
a contortionist none-the-less
as you clean up all the mess
that comes from dining habits
like rolling in your fly haggis
of all such rotting things
as your wake up for the spring
now you hang there upside down
though we don't like you around
your incessant buzzing sounds
let's us know that you're in town
so take your blue-tail ****
out the window 'fore it shuts
or the swatter's day will rule
o'er a pesky insect fool

-cec

Let's begin our song with its music coda —
Nahua elders, of an agricultural peoples of ancient America
weaving their way into history's braided tail
with a relevant document of late fifteen hundreds
communed with a Spanish Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún
suspending time and space onto European paper
writing, a general history, of the things of New Spain
the Florentine Codex (1575-77), during the Great Pestilence of 1576

Meeting to collect the remains of the day in Colegio Imperial
on the Aztec bones of a city now called Mexico
it was ends of eras, community, culture, ghosts
a Rosetta stone of Spanish steel and Nahua blood columns
laid out so even Pliny the Elder would be proud
thirty plus years to account, thousands dead
now resting at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy
this profane tomb still wet from the voyage of conquest ...


Nahua, you plant your staple crops, still
beans, maize, squash, tomatoes; still
the maguey plant calls to your weavers, still
remembering your hands and hearts, still
crushing life may come and go
but the elders foregoing forgetting
released their spirits to print your song

-cec

i have
overslept;
daylight
pouring
through
the sheer
curtains
in our room.
"if you're
awake —
i'm
bringing us
croissants
from the
bakery!"
warm toes
on cold floors;
a shirt —
yours
or mine.
sweet
tinkling
of the
wind chimes
outside;
the dull
sounds of
a possible
lawnmower
somewhere.
walking
to the
kitchen;
the apartment
is empty,
except —
our dog
is fed,
two cups
-- clean
and waiting
on the counter;
music
softly playing
on the radio;
the
gurgle
of the
coffee
machine
— a knock
on the door —
croissants
are here,
and you.
oh,
you.

you want
the sofa
with nine
lives --
made in a
warehouse,
carried into
a bright
room, then
a judge's
office, then
an apartment;
under the
taking off
and
putting on
of clothes.
i want to
paint the
cabinets
white.
every
morning
— naked,
when you
start to put
a shirt on,
i want to
bring you
back in bed;
tell you how
i have never
seen anything
as beautiful
as you.
you want to
tame your
wild hair
in the shower.
i want a
second cup
of coffee in
the evening.
you want
pickles on
your sandwich.
softly,
as the day
becomes
blue, rosé,
then burnt-
orange —
the lights
come on.
i open and
close the
refrigerator;
you put
music on.
somewhere,
in the middle,
i want
you
just
how
you want
me.
the
delicious
smell of
cooking
garlic; a
familiar
song.
you want
me
just
how
i want
you.

you say it
another
time in
the kitchen;
then
i say it
with coffee
in the evening.
we sit,
quietly,
together
at the end
of day —
maybe you
watch a film;
my feet
at your
lap; i open
an old book
... and there
it is again.

Preciso de um refúgio, um santuário etéreo,
um espaço onde o vazio se estenda sem limites,
onde minhas mágoas se afoguem, dissolvendo-se no tempo,
e, ao emergir, fiquem à deriva, sem âncora para retornar.

Não apenas as tristezas desejo abandonar,
mas também os pesares que ecoam na mente,
os tormentos insondáveis, os pensamentos errantes,
toda sombra que, impiedosa, se aninha em meu ser.

Almejo um refúgio, um bálsamo sem toque,
onde minha própria consciência me embale,
pois já não espero gestos nem promessas,
talvez nem mesmo de mim próprio.

Um refúgio onde, após a água fria em dias abrasadores,
eu possa fechar os olhos sem temor,
e, na vastidão do pensamento, encontrar descanso,
certo de que, ao despertar, serei renovado.

Preciso de um mergulho profundo,
tão intenso que, ao emergir,
seja eu outro, despido do peso do passado,
meus fardos escoando pelo ralo do esquecimento.

Que até minha essência resplandeça,
e a escuridão oculta, há tanto arraigada,
seja iluminada por quem deseje permanecer,
pois tal redenção não se dá por acaso,
mas pelo encontro de almas que veem além.

Tão restaurador será esse refúgio,
que nele reencontrarei o que há muito se perdeu:
a centelha que, adormecida,
aguarda apenas um sopro para arder outra vez.