My grandmother from Mexico used to use this Jergen’s face cream that she would call “la crema de las tres caritas,” and every time my dad would go visit her from the states she wouldn’t ask him for anything except to bring her one, and he always would. With time, even when he would make surprise visits, he always made sure to take her a tub of her tres caritas.

I ended up meeting my grandmother when I was about nine, ten years of age, and after that I only saw her once more before she passed. I don’t recall much of our encounters, I don’t really remember what her voice sounded like or the words we exchanged. But I remember her embrace, hugging her for the first time and feeling an immense sense of warmth and love in its purest, grounded form. She had womanhood in her arms, an airy sense of strength, tenderness, and compassion even though I was just a child and couldn’t pin down the feeling just then. It was a unique hug and comfort that only a grandmother could give, and it has come to mean more to me now as a young woman that it ever has, now that I understand. The encouragement and reassurance of her hug has remained with me through the calamity, sufferings, and heartaches of my life; just as she intended.

What I do vividly remember is the complexion of her face. A caramel bronzed, subtly creased, pearly glow. Observing this for the first time as a child, I knew the reason why, and it brought me joy. After that, whenever I was at the store and came across the pink lidded Jergen’s it warmed my heart, it still does. I asked my mom if she could buy me one when we were shopping at Walmart once, and from then on I’ve continued buying and using it. It’s been about thirteen years now, and sometimes when I put some on early morning or at night before going to bed, it makes me think of her, oh her glowing face, of her radiating warmth, and in some silly way it makes me feel close to her, like that first and last embrace we shared that I don’t think I’ll ever come to forget.

It kind of blows me away, in retrospect, how simple objects, little things, how everything seamlessly has the potential to intertwine with significance and meaning. All of this means so much to me.

Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry silk
a slant of witch-light; on the pure text
a slant of genius; emptying mind and heart
for winecups and more winecups and more words.
What was his time? Say that it was a change,
but constant as a changing thing may be,
from chicory's moon-dark blue down the taut scale
to chicory's tenderest pink, in a pink field
such as imagination dreams of thought.
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon
for children lost, lost lovers, and lost friends,
what can we say but that it never ends?
Even for us it never ends, only begins.
Yet to spell down the poem on her page,
margining her phrases, parsing forth
the sevenfold prism of meaning, up the scale
from chicory pink to blue, is to assume
Li Po himself: as he before assumed
the poets and the sages who were his.
Like him, we too have eaten of the word:
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge:
and write, in rain, a letter to lost children,
a letter long as time and brief as love.

II

And yet not love, not only love. Not caritas
or only that. Nor the pink chicory love,
deep as it may be, even to moon-dark blue,
in which the dragon of his meaning flew
for friends or children lost, or even
for the beloved horse, for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling down historic bricks:
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this 'man'? How far from him is 'me'?
Who, in this conch-shell, locked the sound of sea?
We are the tree, yet sit beneath the tree,
among the leaves we are the hidden bird,
we are the singer and are what is heard.
What is this 'world'? Not Li Po's Gorge alone,
and yet, this too might be. 'The wind was high
north of the White King City, by the fields
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky,'
where, as the silkworm drew her silk, Li Po
spun out his thoughts of us. 'Endless as silk'
(he said) 'these poems for lost loves, and us,'
and, 'for the peachtree, blooming in the ditch.'
Here is the divine loneliness in which
we greet, only to doubt, a voice, a word,
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost, a face
touched, and loved, but still unknown, and then
a body, still mysterious in embrace.
Taste lost as touch is lost, only to leave
dust on the doorsill or an ink-stained sleeve:
and yet, for the inadmissible, to grieve.
Of leaf and love, at last, only to doubt:
from world within or world without, kept out.
  
IV

Caucus of robins on an alien shore
as of the **-** birds at Jewel Gate
southward bound and who knows where and never late
or lost in a roar at sea. Rovers of chaos
each one the 'Rover of Chao,' whose slight bones
shall put to shame the swords. We fly with these,
have always flown, and they
stay with us here, stand still and stay,
while, exiled in the Land of Pa, Li Po
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon.
And northward now, for fall gives way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, 'and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The 'far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond knowledge, like ourselves;
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand.

V

The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold
in spiral nebulae, borne on the Invisible
earthward and deathward, but in change to find
the cycles to new birth, new life. Li Po
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow,
and, from the Gorge, sends word of Chouang's dream.
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly?
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang? If so,
why then all things can change, and change again,
the sea to brook, the brook to sea, and we
from man to butterfly; and back to man.
This 'I,' this moving 'I,' this focal 'I,'
which changes, when it dreams the butterfly,
into the thing it dreams of; liquid eye
in which the thing takes shape, but from within
as well as from without: this liquid 'I':
how many guises, and disguises, this
nimblest of actors takes, how many names
puts on and off, the costumes worn but once,
the player queen, the lover, or the dunce,
hero or poet, father or friend,
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end;
childlike, or *******; the language of the kiss
sensual or simple; and the gestures, too,
as slight as that with which an empire falls,
or a great love's abjured; these feignings, sleights,
savants, or saints, or fly-by-nights,
the novice in her cell, or wearing tights
on the high wire above a hell of lights:
what's true in these, or false? which is the 'I'
of 'I's'? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

VI

The thousand eyes, the Argus 'I's' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
'Dead pinetrees hang head-foremost from the cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
seaward, over the Gulf Stream.
                                                       The rat
comes through the wainscot, brings to his larder
the twinned acorn and chestnut burr. Our sleep
lights for a moment into dream, the eyes
turn under eyelids for a scene, a scene,
o and the music, too, of landscape lost.
And yet, not lost. For here savannahs wave
cressets of pampas, and the kingfisher
binds all that gold with blue.
                                                  Why here? why here?
Why does the dream keep only this, just this C?
Yes, as the poem or the music do?

The timelessness of time takes form in rhyme:
the lotus and the locust tree rehearse
a four-form song, the quatrain of the year:
not in the clock's chime only do we hear
the passing of the Now into the past,
the passing into future of the Now:
hut in the alteration of the bough
time becomes visible, becomes audible,
becomes the poem and the music too:
time becomes still, time becomes time, in rhyme.
Thus, in the Court of Aloes, Lady Yang
called the musicians from the Pear Tree Garden,
called for Li Po, in order that the spring,
tree-peony spring, might so be made immortal.
Li Po, brought drunk to court, took up his brush,
but washed his face among the lilies first,
then wrote the song of Lady Flying Swallow:
which Hsuang Sung, the emperor, forthwith played,
moving quick fingers on a flute of jade.
Who will forget that afternoon? Still, still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book for men or sheep,
before it was a book for words. Words, words,
for it is scarlet now, and brown, and red,
and yellow where the birches have not shed,
where, in another week, the rocks will show.
And in this marriage of text and thing how can we know
where most the meaning lies? We climb the hill
through bullbriar thicket and the wild rose, climb
past poverty-grass and the sweet-scented bay
scaring the pheasant from his wall, but can we say
that it is only these, through these, we climb,
or through the words, the cadence, and the rhyme?
Chang Hsu, calligrapher of great renown,
needed to put but his three cupfuls down
to tip his brush with lightning. On the scroll,
wreaths of cloud rolled left and right, the sky
opened upon Forever. Which is which?
The poem? Or the peachtree in the ditch?
Or is all one? Yes, all is text, the immortal text,
Sheepfold Hill the poem, the poem Sheepfold Hill,
and we, Li Po, the man who sings, sings as he climbs,
transposing rhymes to rocks and rocks to rhymes.
The man who sings. What is this man who sings?
And finds this dedicated use for breath
for phrase and periphrase of praise between
the twin indignities of birth and death?
Li Yung, the master of the epitaph,
forgetting about meaning, who himself
had added 'meaning' to the book of >things,'
lies who knows where, himself sans epitaph,
his text, too, lost, forever lost ...
                                                         And yet, no,
text lost and poet lost, these only flow
into that other text that knows no year.
The peachtree in the poem is still here.
The song is in the peachtree and the ear.

IX

The winds of doctrine blow both ways at once.
The wetted finger feels the wind each way,
presaging plums from north, and snow from south.
The dust-wind whistles from the eastern sea
to dry the nectarine and parch the mouth.
The west wind from the desert wreathes the rain
too late to fill our wells, but soon enough,
the four-day rain that bears the leaves away.
Song with the wind will change, but is still song
and pierces to the rightness in the wrong
or makes the wrong a rightness, a delight.
Where are the eager guests that yesterday
thronged at the gate? Like leaves, they could not stay,
the winds of doctrine blew their minds away,
and we shall have no loving-cup tonight.
No loving-cup: for not ourselves are here
to entertain us in that outer year,
where, so they say, we see the Greater Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union and communion.
Have we come
this way before, and at some other time?
Is it the Wind Wheel Circle we have come?
We know the eye of death, and in it too
the eye of god, that closes as in sleep,
giving its light, giving its life, away:
clouding itself as consciousness from pain,
clouding itself, and then, the shutter shut.
And will this eye of god awake again?
Or is this what he loses, loses once,
but always loses, and forever lost?
It is the always and unredeemable cost
of his invention, his fatigue. The eye
closes, and no other takes its place.
It is the end of god, each time, each time.

Yet, though the leaves must fall, the galaxies
rattle, detach, and fall, each to his own
perplexed and individual death, Lady Yang
gone with the inkberry's vermilion stalk,
the peony face behind a fan of frost,
the blue-moon eyebrow behind a fan of rain,
beyond recall by any alchemist
or incantation from the Book of Change:
unresumable, as, on Sheepfold Hill,
the fir cone of a thousand years ago:
still, in the loving, and the saying so,
as when we name the hill, and, with the name,
bestow an essence, and a meaning, too:
do we endow them with our lives?
They move
into another orbit: into a time
not theirs: and we become the bell to speak
this time: as we become new eyes
with which they see, the voice
in which they find duration, short or long,
the chthonic and hermetic song.
Beyond Sheepfold Hill,
gunshot again, the bird flies forth to meet
predestined death, to look with conscious sight
into the eye of light
the light unflinching that understands and loves.
And Sheepfold Hill accepts them, and is still.

XI

The landscape and the language are the same.
And we ourselves are language and are land,
together grew with Sheepfold Hill, rock, and hand,
and mind, all taking substance in a thought
wrought out of mystery: birdflight and air
predestined from the first to be a pair:
as, in the atom, the living rhyme
invented her divisions, which in time,
and in the terms of time, would make and break
the text, the texture, and then all remake.
This powerful mind that can by thinking take
the order of the world and all remake,
w

Luxuria (Lust)

Asmodeus demon of lust
carnal manipulator
****** captor

Castitas (Chastity)

Embracing virtue
honorable wholesomeness
not through one’s weakness

Gula (Gluttony)

The egocentricity
with which the Lord of the flies
upon us relies

Temperantia (Temperance)

practicing restraint
prudence to judge with regard
remaining on guard

Avaritia (Greed)

The Mammon demon
controlling the warmonger
with vows of power.

Caritas (Charity)

Crave unselfishness
give unreserved empathy
love and sympathy

Acedia (Sloth)

Deny grace and God
so evil shall become fact  
when we fail to act

Industria (Diligence)

Fortitude is a must
persistence in conviction
zealous for passion

Ira (Wrath)

In its purest form
presents violence and hate
Satan’s fate

Patientia (Patience)

mercy to haters
receiving the grace to forgive
rewards are massive

Superbia (Pride)

Lucifer’s downfall
for excessive vanity
destroys humility

Humanitas (Kindness)

Sympathy without bias
belief without bitterness
inspire kindness

Invidia (Envy)

resentful passion
an insatiable desire
potent cause of dire

Humilitas (Humility)

think of yourself less
and not think less of yourself
don’t exalt oneself

El césped. Desde la tribuna es un tapete verde. Liso, regular,
aterciopelado, estimulante. Desde la tribuna quizá crean que,
con semejante alfombra, es imposible errar un gol y mucho menos errar
un pase. Los jugadores corren como sobre patines o como figuras de
ballet. Quien es derrumbado cae seguramente sobre un colchón de
plumas, y si se toma, doliéndose, un tobillo, es porque el gesto
forma parte de una pantomima mayor. Además, cobran mucho dinero
simplemente por divertirse, por abrazarse y treparse unos sobre otros
cuando el que queda bajo ese sudoroso conglomerado hizo el gol
decisivo. O no decisivo, es lo mismo. Lo bueno es treparse unos sobre
otros mientras los rivales regresan a sus puestos, taciturnos, amargos,
cabizbajos, cada uno con su barata soledad a cuestas. Desde la tribuna
es tan disfrutable el racimo humano de los vencedores como el drama
particular de cada vencido. Por supuesto, ciertos avispados
espectadores siempre saben cómo hacer la jugada maestra y no
acaban de explicarse, y sobre todo de explicarlo a sus vecinos, por
qué este o aquel jugador no logra hacerla. Y cuando el
árbitro sanciona el penal, el espectador avispado también
intuye hacia qué lado irá el tiro, y un segundo
después, cuando el balón brinca ya en las redes, no
alcanza a comprender cómo el golero no lo supo. O acaso
sí lo supo y con toda deliberación se arrojó al
otro palo, en un alarde de masoquismo o venalidad o estupidez
congénita. Desde la tribuna es tan fácil. Se conoce la
historia y la prehistoria. O sea que se poseen elementos suficientes
como para comparar la inexpugnable eficacia de aquel zaguero
olímpico con la torpeza del patadura actual, que no acierta
nunca y es esquivado una y mil veces. Recuerdo borroso de una
época en que había un centre-half y un centre-forward,
cada uno bien plantado en su comarca propia y capaz de distribuir el
juego en serio y no jugando a jugar, como ahora, ¿no? El
espectador veterano sabe que cuando el fútbol se
convirtió en balompié y la ball en pelota y el dribbling
en finta y el centre-half en volante y el centre-forward en alma en
pena, todo se vino abajo y ésa es la explicación de que
muchos lleven al estadio sus radios a transistores, ya que al menos
quienes relatan el partido ponen un poco de emoción en las
estupendas jugadas que imaginan. Bueno, para eso les pagan,
¿verdad? Para imaginar estupendas jugadas y está bien.
Por eso, cuando alguien ha hecho un gol y después de los abrazos
y pirámides humanas el juego se reanuda, el locutor
idóneo sigue colgado de la "o" de su gooooooool, que en realidad
es una jugada suya, subjetiva, personal, y no exactamente del delantero
que se limitó a empujar con la frente un centro que, entre todas
las otras, eligió su cabeza. Y cuando el locutor idóneo
llega por fin al desenlace de la "ele" final de su gooooooool privado,
ya el árbitro ha señalado un orsai que favorece,
¿por qué no?, al locatario.

Es bueno contemplar alguna vez la cancha desde aquí, desde lo
alto. Así al menos piensa Benjamín Ferrés,
veintitrés años, digamos delantero de un Club Chico,
alguien últimamente en alza según los cronistas
deportivos más estrictos, y que hoy, después de empatarle
al Club Grande y ducharse y cambiarse, no se fue del estadio con el
resto del equipo y prefirió quedarse a mirar, desde la tribuna
ya vacía (sólo quedan los cafeteros y heladeros y
vendedores de banderitas, que recogen sus bártulos o tal vez
hacen cuentas) aquel campo en el que estuvo corriendo durante noventa
minutos e incluso convirtió uno, el segundo, de los dos goles
que le otorgan al Club Chico eso que suele llamarse un punto de oro.
Sí, desde aquí arriba el césped es una alfombra,
casi un paño verde como el del casino, con la importante
diferencia de que allá los números son fijos,
permanentes, y aquí (él, por ejemplo, es el ocho) cambian
constantemente de lugar y además se repiten. A lo mejor con el
flaco Suárez (que lleva el once prendido en la espalda)
podrían ser una de las parejas negras. O no. Porque de ambos,
sólo el Flaco es oscurito.

Ahora se levanta un viento arisco y las gradas de cemento son
recorridas por vasos de plástico, hojas de diario, talones de
entradas, almohadillas, pelotas de papel. Remolinos casi fantasmales
dan la falsa impresión de que las gradas se mueven, giran,
bailotean, se sacuden por fin el sol de la tarde. Hay papeles que suben
las escaleras y otros que se precipitan al vacío. A
Benjamín (Benja, para la hinchada) le sube una bocanada de
desconsuelo, de extraña ansiedad al enfrentarse, ¿por
primera vez?, con la quimera de cemento en estado de pureza (o de
basura, que es casi lo mismo) y se le ocurre que el estadio
vacío, desolado, es como un esqueleto de multitud, un eco
fantasmal de esa misma muchedumbre cuando ruge o aplaude o insulta o
agita banderas. Se pregunta cómo se habrá visto su gol
desde aquí, desde esta tribuna generalmente ocupada por las
huestes del adversario. Para los de abajo en la tabla, el estadio
siempre es enemigo: miles y miles de voces que los acosan, los
persiguen, los hunden, porque generalmente el que juega aquí, el
permanente locatario, es uno de los Grandes, y los de abajo sólo
van al estadio cuando les toca enfrentarlos, y en esas ocasiones apenas
si acarrean, en el mejor de los casos, algunos cientos de
fanáticos del barrio, que, aunque se desgañitan y agitan
como locos su única y gastada bandera, en realidad no cuentan,
es imposible que tapen, desde su islote de alaridos, el gran rugido de
la hinchada mayor. Desde abajo se sabe que existen, claro, y eso es
bueno, y de vez en cuando, cuando se suspende el juego por
lesión o por cambio de jugadores, los del Club Chico van con la
mirada al encuentro de aquel rinconcito de tribuna donde su bandera
hace guiños en clave, señales secretas como las del
truco. Y ésta es la mejor anfetamina, porque los llena de
saludable euforia y además no aparece en los controles
antidopping.

Hoy empataron, no está mal, se dice Benja, el número
ocho. Y está mejor porque todos sus huesos están enteros,
a pesar de la alevosa zancadilla (esquivada sólo por
intuición) que le dedicaran en el toletole previo al primer gol,
dos segundos antes de que el Colorado empujara nuevamente la globa con
el empeine y la colocara, inalcanzable, junto al poste izquierdo.
Después de todo, la playa es mía. Desde hace quince
años la vengo adquiriendo en pequeñas cuotas. Cuotas de
sol y dunas. Todos esos prójimos, prójimas y projimitos
que se ven tendidos sobre las rocas o bajo las sombrillas o corriendo
tras una pelota de engañapichanga o jugando a la paleta en una
cancha marcada en la arena con líneas que al rato se borran,
todos esos otros, están en la playa gracias a que yo les permito
estar. Porque la playa es mía. Mío el horizonte con
toninas remotas y tres barquitos a vela. Míos los peces que
extraen mis pescadores con mis redes antiguas, remendadas. El aire
salitroso y los castillos de arena y las aguas vivas y las algas que ha
traído la penúltima ola. Todo es mío.
¿Qué sería de mí, el número ocho,
sin estas mañanas en que la playa me convence de que soy libre,
de que puedo abrazar esta roca, que es mi roca mujer o tal vez mi roca
madre, y estirarme sin otros límites que mi propio límite
o hasta que siento las tenazas del cangrejo barcino sobre mi dedo
gordo? Aquí soy número ocho sin llevarlo en la espalda.
Soy número ocho sencillamente porque es mi identidad. Un cura o
un teniente o un payaso no necesitan vestir sotana o uniforme o traje
de colores para ser cura o teniente o payaso. Soy número ocho
aunque no lo lleve dibujado en el lomo y aunque ningún botija se
arrime a pedirme autógrafos, porque sólo se piden
autógrafos a los de los Clubes Grandes. Y creo que siempre
seré de Club Chico, porque me gusta amargarles la fiesta, no a
los jugadores que después de todo son como nosotros, sólo
que con más suerte y más guita, ni siquiera a la hinchada
grande por más que nos insulte cuando hacemos un fau y festeje
ruidosamente cuando el otro nos propina un hachazo en la canilla. Me
gusta arruinarles la fiesta, sobre todo a los dirigentes, esos
industriales bien instalados en su cochazo, en su piso de la Rambla y
en su mondongo, señores cuya gimnasia sabatina o dominical
consiste en sentarse muy orondos, arriba en el palco oficial, y desde
ahí ver cómo allá abajo nos reventamos, nos
odiamos, nos derretimos en sudores, y cuando sus jugadores ganan,
condescienden a llegar al vestuario y a darles una palmadita en el
hombro, disimulando apenas el asco que les provoca aquella piel
todavía sudada, y en cambio, cuando sus jugadores pierden, se
van entonces directamente a su casa, esta vez por supuesto sin ocultar
el asco. En verdad, en verdad os digo que yo ignoro si hacen eso, pero
me lo imagino. Es decir, tengo que imaginarlo así, porque una
cosa son las instrucciones del entrenador, que por supuesto trato de
cumplir si no son demasiado absurdas, y otra cosa son las instrucciones
que yo me doy, verbigracia vamo vamo número ocho hay que aguarle
la fiesta a ese presidente cogotudo, jactancioso y mezquino, que viene
al estadio con sus tres o cuatro nenes que desde ya tienen caritas de
futuros presidentes cogotudos. Bueno, no sé ni siquiera si tiene
hijos, pero tengo que imaginarlo así porque soy el número
ocho, insustituible titular de un Club Chico y, ya que cobro poco,
tengo que inventarme recompensas compensatorias y de esas recompensas
inventadas la mejor es la posibilidad de aguarle la fiesta al cogotudo
presidente del Grande, a fin de que el lunes, cuando concurra a su
Banco o a su banca, pase también su vergüenza rica, su
vergüenza suntuosa, así como nosotros, los que andamos en
la segunda mitad de la tabla, sufrimos, cuando perdemos, nuestra
vergüenza pobre. Pero, claro, no es lo mismo, porque los Grandes
siempre tienen la obligación de ganar, y los Chicos, en cambio,
sólo tenemos la obligación de perder lo menos posible. Y
cuando no ganamos y volvemos al barrio, la gente no nos mira con
menosprecio sino con tristeza solidaria, en tanto que al presidente
cogotudo, cuando vuelve el lunes a su Banco o a su banca, la gente, si
bien a veces se atreve a decirle qué barbaridad doctor porque
ustedes merecieron ganar y además por varios goles, en realidad
está pensando te jodieron doctor qué salsa les dieron
esos petizos. Por eso a mí no me importa ser número ocho
titular y que no me pidan autógrafos aquí en la playa ni
en el cine ni en Dieciocho. Los partidos no se ganan con
autógrafos. Se ganan con goles y ésos los sé
hacer. Por ahora al menos. También es un consuelo que la playa
sea mía, y como mía pueda recorrerla descalzo, casi
desnudo, sintiendo el sol en la espalda y la brisa en los ojos, o
tendiéndome en las rocas pero de cara al mar, consciente de que
atrás dejo la ciudad que me espía o me protege,
según las horas y según mi ánimo, y adelante
está esa llanura líquida, infinita, que me lame, me
salpica, a veces me da vértigo y otras veces me brinda una
insólita paz, un extraño sosiego, tan extraño que
a veces me hace olvidar que soy número ocho.
Alejandra. Lo extraño había sido que Benja conociera sus
manos antes que su rostro, o mejor aún, que se enamorara de sus
manos antes que de su rostro. Él regresaba de San Pablo en un
vuelo de Pluna. El equipo se había trasladado para jugar dos
amistosos fuera de temporada, pero Benja sólo había
participado en el primero porque en una jugada tonta había
caído mal y el desgarramiento iba a necesitar por lo menos cinco
días de cuidado, así que el preparador físico
decidió mandarlo a Montevideo para que allí lo atendieran
mejor. De modo que volvía solo. A la media hora de vuelo se
levantó para ir al baño y cuando regresaba a su sitio
tuvo la impresión de ser mirado pero él no miró.
Simplemente se sentó y reinició la lectura de Agatha
Christie, que le proponía un enigma afilado, bienhumorado y
sutil como todos los suyos.

De pronto percibió que algo singular estaba ocurriendo. En el
respaldo que estaba frente a él apareció una mano de
mujer. Era una mano delgada, de dedos largos y finos, con uñas
cuidadas pero sin color. Una mano expresiva, o quizá que
expresaba algo, pero qué. A los dos o tres minutos hizo
irrupción la otra mano, que era complementaria pero no igual.
Cada mano tenía su carácter, aunque sin duda
compartían una inquietante identidad. Benja no pudo continuar su
lectura. Adiós enigma y adiós Agatha. Las manos se
movían con sobriedad, se rozaban a veces. Él
imaginó que lo llamaban sin llamarlo, que le contaban una
historia, que le ofrecían respuestas a interrogantes que
aún no había formulado; en fin, que querían ser
asidas. Y lo más preocupante era que él también
quería asirlas, con todos los riesgos que un acto así
podía implicar, verbigracia que la dueña de aquellas
manos llamara inmediatamente a la azafata, o se levantara, enfrentada a
su descaro, y le propinara una espléndida bofetada, con toda la
vergüenza, adicional y pública, que semejante castigo
podía provocar. Hasta llegó a concebir, como un destello,
un título, a sólo dos columnas (porque era número
ocho, pero sólo de un Club Chico): conocido futbolista uruguayo
abofeteado en pleno vuelo por dama que se defiende de agresión
******.

Y sin embargo las manos hablaban. Sutiles, seductoras,
finísimas, dialogaban uña a uña, yema a yema, como
creando una espera, construyendo una expectativa. Y cuando fue ordenado
el ajuste de los cinturones de seguridad, desaparecieron para cumplir
la orden, pero de inmediato volvieron a poblar el respaldo y con ello a
convocar la ansiedad del número ocho, que por fin decidió
jugarse el todo por el todo y asumir el riesgo del ridículo, el
escándalo y el titular a dos columnas que acabaran con su
carrera deportiva. De modo que, tomada la difícil
decisión y tras ajustarse también él el
cinturón, avanzó su propia mano hacia los dedos
cautivantes, que en aquel preciso momento estaban juntos. Notó
un leve temblor, pero las manos no se replegaron. La suya
prolongó aquel extraño contacto por unos segundos, luego
se retiró. Sólo entonces las otras manos desaparecieron,
pero no pasó nada. No hubo llamada a la azafata ni bofetada.
Él respiró y quedó a la espera. Cuando el
avión comenzaba el descenso, una de las manos apareció de
nuevo y traía un papel, más bien un papelito, doblado en
dos. Benja lo recogió y lo abrió lentamente. Conteniendo
la respiración, leyó: 912437.

Se sintió eufórico, casi como cuando hacía un gol
sobre la hora y la hinchada del barrio vitoreaba su nombre y él
alzaba discretamente un brazo, nada más que para comunicar que
recibía y apreciaba aquel apoyo colectivo, aquel afecto, pero
los compañeros sabían que a él no le gustaba toda
esa parafernalia de abrazos, besos y palmaditas en el trasero, algo que
se había vuelto habitual en todas las canchas del mundo.
Así que cuando metía un gol sólo le tocaban un
brazo o le hacían desde lejos un gesto solidario. Pero ahora,
con aquel prometedor 912437 en el bolsillo, descendió del
avión como de un podio olímpico y diez minutos
después pudo mirar discretamente hacia la dueña de las
manos, que en ese instante abría su valija frente al funcionario
aduanero, y Benja comprobó que el rostro no desmerecía la
belleza y la seducción de las manos que lo habían enamorado.
Benja y Martín se encontraron como siempre en la pizzería
del sordo Bellini. Desde que ambos integraran el cuadrito juvenil de La
Estrella habían cultivado una amistad a prueba de balas y
también de codazos y zancadillas. Benja jugaba entonces de
zaguero y sin embargo había terminado en número ocho.
Martín, que en la adolescencia fuera puntero derecho, más
tarde (a raíz de una sustitución de emergencia, tras
lesiones sucesivas y en el mismo partido del golero titular y del
suplente) se había afincado y afirmado en el arco y hoy era uno
de los guardametas más cotizados y confiables de Primera A.

El sordo Bellini disfrutaba plenamente con la presencia de los dos
futbolistas. Él, que normalmente no atendía las mesas
sino que se instalaba en la caja con su gorra de capitán de
barco, cuando Martín y Benja aparecían, solos o
acompañados, de inmediato se arrimaba solícito a dejarles
el menú, a recoger los pedidos, a recomendarles tal o cual plato
y sobre todo a comentar las jugadas más notables o más
polémicas del último domingo.

Era algo así como el fan particular de Benja y Martín y
su caballito de batalla era hacerles bromas c

He could tell I wasn't real
somehow. That the space
between us was longer
than the length of his
arm. I talked less
than he did, yet he was
quiet and still

I was to go out
and find a (some)
body to build a house
with. But he is too
much of a person
to shelter under

I never wanted a
garden but I wanted
a place to lie,
to let the sun
lick my back
as I read

I read everything
I couldn't think or
say for myself,
especially to him

He is kind and
tender and
I'm not

It's getting harder to fill
the silences. For my words
to reach my mouth

and I am desperate
to be more than a
ghost searching for
a body to climb
into

Through troubled seasons when cherished ones
      are out of sight but never out of heart,
we close our eyes and visages appear,
     from reliquaries of hallowed memories.

From exile, we gather sustenance
     from smiles or hearty laughs recalled
or brows contorted from common care -
     harvesting golden tokens of our kinship.

United beyond walls of separation
     we envision times to come
when we clasp arms again in solidarity
    and break a common loaf of bread.

For now, we chant hymns to caritas
    for all we hold dear and sacred -
conjuring not too distant seasons
    when hope and restoration regain the earth.

"en qué consiste el juego de la muerte" preguntó
sammy mccoy parado en sus dos niños
el que fue el que sería
"en qué consiste el juego de la muerte" preguntó sin embargo

antes había bebido toda la leche de la mañana
jugos del cielo o de la vaca madre según
untándola con los sueños que
se le cían de la noche anterior

sammy mccoy era odiado frecuentemente por una mujer
que no le daba hijos sino palos
en la cabeza en el costado
en la mitad del desayuno esa fiebre

de cada palo que le dieron
brotó una flor de leche o fiebre que le comía el corazón
peor todo se come el corazón
y sammy nunca se rendía sammy mccoy no se rendía defendiéndose con nada:

con la memoria del calor
con la cucharita que perdió una vez revolviendo la infancia
con todo lo que iba rezando o padeciendo
con su pelela mesmamente

así
del pecho le fue saliendo
una dragona con pañuelo y la luz
como muchacha envuelta en aire

como dos niños sobre los que niño
sammy mccoy se paraba y
"en qué consiste el juego de la muerte" preguntaba
ya cara a cara con la gran dolora

cuando murió sammy mccoy
los dos niños se le despegaron
el que fue se le pudrió y el que iba a ser también
y de todos modos fueron juntos

lo que la lluvia o sol o gran planeta o la sistema de vivir separan
la muerte lo junta otra vez
pero sammy mccoy habló todavía
"en qué consiste el juego de la muerte" preguntó

y ya más nada preguntó
de sus falanges ángeles con mudos
salían con la boca tapada
a cucharita a memoria a calor


"güeya güeya" gritaban sus dos niños
ninguna mujer salvo la sombra los juntó
qué vergüenzas animales
y las caritas les brillaban calientes

así ha de ser caritas de oro
señoras presidentas o almas cuyas acabaran
a los pieses de sammy el que camina
sammy mccoy pisó el sol y partió

the art of mercy,
is not a hard thing,
to learn...

like pontilism,
you start...
with one small dot,
one act of kindness,
a smile, a word, a change
of heart,
to this add more,
build a picture of caritas....
shaded with compassion
and thoughtful deeds.

paint then, a new canvas
using, broad strokes of time
and heartfelt tears....
be magmanimous,
with colour,
care and altruism,
be bold and brave
with actions,
that come from
your need,
to see this world
as a legacy of love....

then, when you have mastered that,
take up your pencil
and draw,
in fine lined, forbearance and clemency,
a self portrait of forgiveness,
for we all need mercy....
and reminders,
to be of a heart most merciful...

then take your palette,
and new found skills
and become
an artist....
of the street,
teaching, giving showing mercy
at every turn or bus-stop,
every street corner....
under bridges, in tall towers
scrawl mercy, on walls
and sidewalks....
paint the town....
                   paint the town.....

the art of mercy....
               is simply,
                             beautiful,
               to behold,
                             at work,
               it changes,
                           just about,
               everything......
for the better...

English Catholicism
Newman. Chesterton. Hopkins.
                Ubi Caritas.

Is there a God? And did He really build
This world for us in which to live and serve
Each other and Him in sweet caritas?

Is there a God? And does he really love us?

If this is so,

Why does He permit motivational speakers?

We are against the death penalty, and so
Of thoughtful caritas one recommends
Life sentences with no chance for parole
(And endless-loop re-runs of Lost in Space)

For

1. The manufacturers of this new computer
2. The famous software company who couldn’t
         Program their ///es out of a pay toilet
3. And the electronics chain who replies
        To emails with “Dear Valued Customer”

And vaporous words which say nothing at all

And now may Olivetti Underwood
Have mercy upon their polluted souls

Lectio Divina
Father Peter, Thomas Merton

Sometimes curious hints
But no, I am not certain

2 years of Latin
Dr. Lisle at JMU

Ubi caritas
Is where I think true blue

Et amor
I still remember you

Alpha Chi glasses
Cam Cam true passes
         caritas

May my solitude improve
              the raven and the dove
                          my dearness ones...



                                        love.

He could tell I wasn't real
somehow. That the space
between us was longer
that the length of his
arm. I talked less
than he did, yet he was
quiet and still

I was to go out
and find a (some)
body to build a house
with. But he is too
much of a person
to shelter under

I never wanted a
garden but I wanted
a place to lie,
to let the sun
lick my back
as I read

I read everything
I couldn't think or
say for myself,
especially to him

He is kind and
tender and
I'm not

It's getting harder to fill
the silences. For my words
to reach my mouth

and I am desperate
to be more than a
ghost searching for
a body to climb
into

the possibly eternal silence
      yearning burning
                pacem

Orléans, the maid Jean (Żąn of Arc)...

i have made peace with the paganism revival
in the medium realm of music,
i once entertained the idea...
but upon watching Floki crawl into the heart
of the mountain
  (vikings t.v. series)...
and seeing a cross at its base,
                   rather than a hammer of a dwarven
master smithy...
  breaking down and crying...
          and then recounting his ambitions?
for a people to adopt an approach of a people
to do not consider revenge?
          him screaming, from the mountain's heart,
which resulted in a volvanic eruption...
what god was he seeking,
to begin with?
             i moved from pop, rock, alt., punk
etc. into pagan revival music,
but i also transitioned from pagan revival
music into the realm of the templar chants,
byzantine chants, the gregorian...
and it was so soothing,
         my faith, my heart lies with the music
that appeases me, my angers and my doubts...
it's not the most spectacular of examples,
but its the only honesty i can ever give,
i cry at beauty...
   when i spent the whole night
watching the indian sea pillage and ****
  the kenyan coast...
when i first heard ola gjeilo's ubi caritas,
when i first heard
vaughan william's fantasia on a theme
by thomas tallis...
            it is so hard to cry when presented
with beauty...

     i side with the christian chants...
akin to the gregorian: libera me domine...

  after all... the post-roman scripts are
not pretty, esp. the english language
pretending to know the existence of orthography...
which it doesn't: given it has no diacritical
marker applicability...
             hardly a diacritical marking system
if...   ȷust so, as ι saιd... and also... they disappear
upon the CAPITAL STATED...
  JUST LIKE, SO...

               but at least the post-roman
latιn remaιns allow, more for a language to be
sung... than could ever be saιd...
hardly to claιm... ι, I, L, l...
   (after all... what of the asiatic people?
they have a complex phonetic encoding
system,
   last time i checked...
      they drew beautifully...
     but when it came to singing?
                  i find crows to croack
more beautifully than their peoples singing;
i guess you really need a castrato harem
of choir boys to reach the sort of pop
established by 20th century artists...
     how almost wonderful...
             castratos ascribed the governance
of song, rather than disgruntled harem ******)...
                
now... please excuse me, whιle ι translate
the lyrιcs of lιbera me domιne
   (in pig latin)...

     libera me domine
                      de mortem aeterna
           in die illa tremenda
     caeli movendi sunt et terra
        dum veneris
                   judicare saeculum per ignem
     tremens factus sum ego et timeo
        dum discussio venerit
      atque ventura ira
                 quando caeli vendi sunt et terra
dies illes dies irae
    calamatis et miseriae
         dies magna et amara valde
dum veneris
                 judicare saeculum per ignem
    requiem aeternam dona eis domine
  et lux per petua luceat eis
  liber me domine
                  de morte aeterna...
in die illa tremenda...

    free me lord
              from death's eternity
into your godliness that's awe inspiring
  (as also terrible)
heaven moves both sun and earth
while love judges heathenism
    by fire
    rest from the eternal gifts as
does the lord...
   and the light from its "petulance"
to continue to shine...

   will gregorian chants be censored?
templar chants? byzantine chants?
                   i tired of pop songs,
of 20th century "innovations"...

    petua...
                 in english... the word implies:
advice...
ah!
     et lux per petua luceat eis
   and from seeking advice from the light
that shines!
so much for: petulance...

what a contradictory song...
               still...
                                what's next,
they ban gregorian chants,
   and fall flat praising and clapping
the next adhan?!

I might be evil. I might be good.
Help me care for my neighborhood.

Josef Conrad
Perceived an impassive world
Darkness in its heart

Polish perception
Novelist's art

So
how does emotion start?

Dr. Thomas was quite caring
Dr. O'Meara not so much
Phoenix, Arizona
A little lunch with Hutch

Libraries are quiet
Silent speech of the Dead
I'm really very boring
Anguish left unsaid

She's pretty, caring, gentle
Her father a Simple Man
I'm not consequential
Nashville with a tan :)

I'm fundamentally shy
Don't like the spotlight
Not her kinda guy
But I do like to write

             Robert Coles
          Not Sein und Zeit

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               Palm Sunday Well-Sanitized

There is social distancing in Jerusalem
Mostly among Romans and Greeks and Jews
Who don’t much like each other anyway -
How is this day different from all other days? 1

This year there is no parking-lot procession
That’s good; the timing of the hymn in front
Never matches the timing ‘way in back
And the mail-order palms are sanitized

What hosannas this season, you may well ask:
Wave the virus and proclaim, “Wear your mask!”


1 Cf. The Seder


(This is only a bit of wry humor; good hygiene is always a matter of caritas in protecting others as well as one’s self.)

my life is now a failure
no job, family torn

I drift, I drift, I drift
time is not reborn

so little love in this country
the politics of despair

ignorance all around
Highwater Everywhere

                 Still to care

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           This Poem is Your Work Too

This poem is your work too; you are its hope
Every poem is for the reader who gives
The poem a mission in its words and lines
A safe place to land, as McKuen says

This poem is your work too; you are its voice
So, please, dream it, breathe it, build it, shape it
Into something you want or need or love
Arrange it in a vase of summer flowers

This poem is your work too, a gift of caritas
Think it by lamplight; play it in sunlight

After all, you are its reason for being

Thank you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             You are not a Banana

                                  Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered

A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)

If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so

Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun

But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses

Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas

We are brothers and sisters, not bananas

something obviously created us
for somehow here we are

but is that Something good at all
or are we born under indifferent stars?

no more to war and torment myself
no more searching near and far

but how I  wish for kindliness
caritas y la belleza del mar

the collapsing Catholic Church
    into the Void they lurch
  resistance through research ...

                 ubi caritas

Maybe tomorrow to Kure Beach
Walk and touch the pier

Drive south along the winding way
An eagle may appear

Saint Augustine is beautiful
My wife loves it too

If I made it down to Key West
What would Bob Dylan do?

The South is sun, but now it's Fall
Leaves and chill in air

I wasn't one who became a Name
But I was one who became care:

Ubi Caritas, Scarborough Fair.

Sometimes the silence is a Nurse
quite possibly a multiverse
I'd like to be both kind and terse

                    Ubi caritas