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IF THIS IS JUST A DREAM

What better place to reverence
creation than along two rivers
and that sensation, the smoke
that thunders, Victoria Falls.

Late February, early spring,
the rains and grey-crowned cranes—
everything fertile and wild.
Oxpeckers, those inspectors

of the backs of cape buffalo,
waterbucks and impala.
Shadows of baobabs and pink-
blossomed teaks on the land.

Ambiance of a soft rain shower—
leaf, thorn and flower washed fresh.
Scent of wild basil to cancel
out the stench of the passing male

elephant in musth. The karoo thrush
spreading its rich full-hearted song
like a velveteen shawl over the land.
Soulful, not a hint of morbidity

or ferocity. I awake from a brief
sleep, sneak a peek at vervet monkeys
in the canopies of pod-mahoganies.
Never mind my vision’s dimmed

by cataracts these days. I am
inclined to see and hear with
perfect acuity all the Zambezi
and Chobe offer. If this is just

a dream, and all is nothing more
than in the mind, then let me stay
for all time where the spray
of the smoke that thunders drifts,
              and little swifts fly through it
                             like tossed up golden gifts.

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LIGHT OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

How to describe the light
of the midnight sun on these islands
midway between Norway
and the North Pole, covering
sixty-two thousand square kilometers?

Locals claim in the midst of summer,
tiring of one perpetual day,
they begin longing for the darkening
beckoning the start of the long polar night.

At first, I couldn’t quite
believe them, but after a brief
first week, I begin to understand—
light on the sea and land
foiling my grasp of time.

It’s Ramadan, with no moon
to track, no stars to shed silver on
the night. But then of course if
I were here the other side of a year,
no doubt I’d long to feel a trace
of sunshine on my face.

Light these summer nights
here on the open sea, in narrow fjords—
sun’s disk dallying on the horizon’s rim—
has no beginning or end—too much
of a good thing. My inclination
is all things in moderation.

Glaring light pours through my porthole,
thanks to the Earth’s axial tilt
while our tall ship sails on
throughout the ceaseless polar day
under the incessant, gloaming night-
light of a pearl-gray sky

and in the shadow, the silence—
save a drip here, a pop there—
of diminishing ice.

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POSTCARDS FROM THE EVERGLADES

At dawn in a small plane,
we hovered above the panther’s
domain. No sighting, but still
it was an incredible thrill.

Today was a day to die for:
first time to see crocodile
and swallow-tailed kite.

Waited at dusk with the spider
lily in its mangrove swamp
for sphinx moth to come.

In pools beside Eco Pond
mid-day, watched a ballet:
graceful black-necked stilts.

Along a mangrove-fringed shore,
I took a solitary walk. But I wasn’t alone.
Perched on her royal palm throne,
a red-shouldered hawk with her yellow-
spotted beak kept her eyes on me.

Today in the basketwork of a cabbage
palm’s old fan hilts, I found air plants,
ferns, a lizard lounging.

In a hidden hammock, I pitied
sabal palmettos in the clutches
of strangler figs.

Listened intently tonight on Pine Island,
where I sleep, to vociferous whip-poor-wills
pursuing on the wing their insect meals.

Caught a glimpse of preglacial times
today on an outcrop of old rock
in the middle of a sawgrass river.

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FIVE SPECIES OF SALMON

each summer returning from the sea,
completing their life cycle.
Bears competing with human anglers
for the coveted catch—many evading
both animal and human to reach
their gravel spawning beds.
Cycle completed, they die:

King salmon the first to arrive
spring to mid-summer; sockeye,
pink and chum the next to come;
then the silver, late summer into fall.

Kings (Chinook) the largest.
See them in the sea with steel-blue
backs and heads, silver sides. Entering
fresh water, blushing purplish-red.

Sockeyes (Reds), best for smoking,
at sea sleek as polished silver. Spawning,
their bodies turn scarlet, heads olive.

Pinks (Humpbacks or Humpys), the smallest,
best for canning. Spawning males mellow
to brown; females to olive green.

Chums (Dog) best for caviar and natives’
dog teams. Spawning males sport green
and purple vertical bars, dog-like teeth.

Silver (Cohos) best for poaching,
grilling—last to spawn, most acrobatic.
I would be ecstatic along the streams
of this rainforest if I had only one
silver or chum for a companion.

What joy to watch one leap, to see
its transformation like a maple leaf in fall.
How sad if my one compatriot could not
complete its upstream swim. Yet even then,
what bliss for the bear grown thin
on berries and roots of skunk cabbage.



Am I selfish, desiring the one
salmon for my own delight?
What reverie on the borderline
between sea and mountain streams,
crystals and pearls filling my dreams—
diversity of exquisite acrobatic fish—
such resolve and bravery against
all odds, swimming counter-current.

Salmons’ journey a measure
of time’s passage. Defying gravity,
enflamed by a fierce longing
to return, they ignite my own fuse.
Consumed, I too yearn (burn)
to get back to my origins.

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I GIVE THANKS ALL DAY

                            after William Stanley Braithwaite 

I give thanks all day for the purring of cats,
For spring and fall and losses,
For migrating birds and the mystery of bats,
For the softness of feathers and mosses.

I rejoice in my curiosity’s wandering bent
That steers me beyond the mundane,
Where imagination takes off like a bird aloft
To soar above the clouds and rain.

I give thanks all day for the mud and muck,
For the pure lusciousness of mangroves,
For little mud clams that crawl across toes,
And pink stilted clouds of flamingos.

I give thanks when words flow, cartwheel and spill,
When I sing myself utterly away
Like Basho’s cicada shell empty and still
End of the last summer day.

I rejoice in discovery
And the great unknowing,
For all that is coming
And all that is going,

For the example of the albatross
With his wingbeatless gliding
Reminding me to cease
From my endless striving.

I give thanks all day
For the rapture and despair,
For all that is missing
And all that’s still there.

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Afternoon in the Cemetery

                 under loblolly pines 

I don’t believe in hallowed ground, but I like that border control
doesn’t come here. It’s smelling season. I’m staring
at the wide eagles’ nest because I would like an illegal feather,
when a woman’s dog growls at my arrangement
low in the grasses. She says her dog never barks, so I avert my eyes
from the fledglings above. Like a secret
just past the blackberries’ five-pointed stars, I could love this place
if I didn’t know the reason for it.

                    under cherry blossoms

I’m a tourist. I debate whether the citizen star
on my ID is sufficient so close to the border.
In the end, I don’t board a ferry to cross. I touch the end
of my hairpin to feel secured by what’s expensive. I text a loved one
on the other end of the sound. Maybe I write an apology,
though to whom, it’s too early to tell. To a friend, I admit,
given a second opportunity I’d record all my English
in italics. A formal decentering to ensure my mother’s speech
is roman. The alternative document would offer
a shared experience, a poem that’s of the world
but a world that’s better for me. Of course you don’t love it.

                    under coastal redwoods

Perhaps a poem can be better than the world
because of my obsessions. On weekends, after Mom bought
her first house, we’d watch The Crow, a movie in which the star
is Asian and white. My mother liked to point out which characters
I could grow into. “Not the Crow,” she’d tell me
after Brandon Lee’s last scene. I wonder how it is for others.
Mothers say, come visit, lovers say
come home, enemies say, go home. The line I remember
from the movie is not central to the story.

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To Someone Who’s Heard, I Love You, Too Many Times

Your friend explains having been in a room
filled with other people who, like you and your friend,
collect words from parents. The words
[                                                                ]
don’t come together into a language.
And the person on the stage expressed deep shame
for a project where she had tried to speak
but misspoke in a language
for which she had no teacher.
This is what you most fear. In one language,
you are the perpetual infant. You point to the moon
and call it payneta moon, once every 28 days.
Nanay gave you what is specific. Not the general
name for the moon [                 ].
                                                        Everything you say
timing and intimacy has shaped.

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The World Begs for Transcription

My mother leaves a voicemail asking I work back-of-house when I can.

I haven’t had a parent call afraid for my safety since 9/11.

Close to where I live, a couple books a hotel, purchases paramilitary gear, pays
off a credit card, in order to hinder my life. The news refrains from describing
the white couple’s terrorist act at the Capitol. I wonder if it’s not a question of
the act but who feels it. Who has a good way to respond?

I’m going to distract you.

Nanay calls on Monday night to try out her new tablet. She alternates between
I’m beautiful and you’re beautiful. Beauty, meaning a pair.

We admit to gaining weight, and Ate Bernnie congratulates my well attended
Zoom meeting.

(Lots of repetition.)

Nanay wants to show that her hair is all white.

I’ve yet to find a term of self-reference that does not equate to ornament.





Someone I don’t know mispronounces my name—worse—someone who would
like to know me.

Be good and kind, they say, or else. But I am not good or kind or else I would not
look for retribution.

Cardinals and squirrels before summer when I don’t want to be responsible for
their nests.

On a podcast, a poet I love names the many accountability groups she’s joined
this year. I am jealous of her self-discipline and the word accountability, used as
a term of self-discipline, but that is not what I want.

I insist on protection. Pick up an omen the last night of the year. Foremost sin
in my mind, the one not worth confessing.

Beloved, if it is the year of the comet, do not look for the comet.

I stay so long in one place my hair lines the nests. I don’t know how to hold
down what I love, but I’ve eaten so much fruit trying to lure the animal to me.

I go to the grocery store. Two men open the door for me.

I cannot stop them.

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Tonight, a Woman

Asked not to put language in the garden

                                                                                       I could not.

Tonight, a CNN reporter was arrested when an officer refused to hear her
credentials. He repeatedly asked, Do you speak

                                                                                English. Now I fear I may be told I

speak nothing.

              Ignore everything I have said about care.


                                                                              I say it twice to negate.
   

I have heard someone I love speak around someone I love, like English is a sieve
for catching one another’s cruelty.

                              Catch and hold.

If people keep saying they love me





                                                                                                    maybe they love me

                                           and don’t know what else to say.

The earth is an emotional wreck.

                                                                           The earth is Eden + sin.

We are alive in an era of firsts we don’t recognize. A co-worker takes an ugly
photo of me in my favorite dress, and I have no redemption arc.


                                                Only a lovely speech pattern.
 

I had tried to say something about the garden. I had tried to say something
about myself.

                                         Plants that grow like weeds are popular cultivars.

We know the aftermath.

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2

I want to go home, which is a concession—home isn’t here. The opposite of
possibility, to give up possession. I often think I am losing ground.

When the passport office closes, I cut my hair.

The passport office opens. I grow it out again.

It is possible what belongs to me doesn’t dictate where I belong.

Once, at the beginning of an important friendship, we pointed at our flag and
joked, Can either of us write anything sincere about that?¹

____________

1 (Attempt)

A flag can be colorized as a second flag to represent the smallest
faction of people or to celebrate a holiday or to make a statement
—and the flag is still recognizable but now means the United States
during Breast Cancer Awareness Month or the United States
of Police Officers or the United Colonized State as Mark Twain
once described, proposing a flag for my mother’s country,
We can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted
black & the stars replaced by the skull & crossbones.
Of course, my country is my mother’s country. She insists, love both!

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