MY SPANISH IS NO GOOD
The shifting breezes barely stirred the sodden flags;
the tide turned, to inch back toward the sea,
spilling yonder poplars upside down.
Redwing blackbirds scritching;
a distant dopplered airhorn sounding a crossing—
and from my spokes, a whisper.
Above all this floated something sonorous—
syllables, from a man, seated on the bank—
swarthy, stubbled,
hatted, hoodied,
hands flailing, grasping air,
like the gulls beyond his reach.
My Spanish is not good,
but did I catch some words?
Madre de Dios—or perhaps else…
Who else was there, to prove my ears were wrong?
Who else, besides the black robed cormorant?
Who else, besides the sharp toed osprey?
Who else, besides the silent river?
BASHŌ WALKS: A HAIBUN
“I might as well be going to the ends of the earth!” —Matsuo Bashō
Proudly the land wears its poverty. Once self-sufficient farms,subdivided among sons, resubdivided among grandsons: plots grown narrower, shallower, great grandson’s well down the slope from grandson’s septic field. Pickup trucks with rifle racks, a little white cross festooned with plastic flowers at every sharp bend in the road. Summer, clouds of mosquitos; winter, haze of piñon smoke. In the few remaining orchards, peach and apple blossoms grace spring’s arrival.
All this bounded by mountains: to west, the Jemez; Sandia to the south. Along the easterly horizon range the mighty Sangre de Cristos, where vestiges of snow linger through Leo.
I sojourned here, in the valley of the Rio Grande, working with my hands, living in a rented trailer house barely 8 feet wide. Halos of frost on the bedroom wall where our heads had lain. Kicking my frigid bike to life at five degrees above, then riding 40 miles to work. And somewhere, way out there beyond Redondo Peak, the hippy haven hot spring. Fifty years later I sought it out.
this two lane highway
mountains tell it where to bend
where to rise and fall
I crept along the road to San Ysidro, searching for the unpaved turnoff. I remembered it was somewhere past the Jemez Pueblo, in a steep bouldered canyon. Along the way,
I pause among pines
overwhelmed by their silence
then the wind rises
I did not find what I was looking for, thus continued on my journey. The next day, approaching Denver,
the landscape dissolves
tall signs—gas—food—sad to be
back in the city
A journey cluttered with memories—perhaps more real than the moment itself. I mourned my foolish choices, blown opportunities, my abandoned lover. My consolation is my pen, however humble the words that flow
from it.
Bashō walks, I drive
no wonder my poor words pale
before the Master
Alan Abrams is: Art school dropout, ace motorcycle mechanic, middling carpenter. Builder and bootleg architect. A scribbler of stories and poems, many of which have been published by journals and anthologies, including Bourgeon/Mid Atlantic Review, Decolonial Passage, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Rat’s Ass Review, Disturb the Universe, The Galway Review, The Raven’s Perch, and many others. An excerpt from his novel, The Journeys of Jack Isaksen, has been published by the Embark Literary Journal. A sequel is under way.
Image: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
