(dedicated to Alvaro Rivas)
(1)
Across
the desert of salt-sea
swan-necked
camel
drinks
the metaphor of his hump
bearing
unimaginable answers
to
questions never asked.
There
are no years. Only egg moons and tortoise suns
losing
seasons slowly in the see-saw.
Days
and nights are drawn between grandmasters
and
every bluff is called.
Where
goes Spring where Spring has never been,
where
goes Autumn where no Etruscan duels to the death
over
necropolis?
Where
sleep Spanish before
Columbus
discovers the hammock?
Bells
swing in new air--ever level:
¡Gracias
a Dios hemos salido de esas honduras!—“Thank
God,
we
have left that dark & backward abysm....”
Swinging
in warm air--¡Gracias
a Dios!
Is
there not invoked therefore
the
rule of threefold repetition:
one
Summer, as everywhere hot?
And
the winter of twin sisters—one warm torrential rain
and
other mirrored as a secret undercloak
like
an ancient Christmas in Mexico?
Just
what climate is worn under the skin?
What
year are skulls knit and bones born?
It
is not a question of checkmating Borges:
sighted
or blind stand reversible seasons
like
upside down Europeans.
Jaque
mate!
Here
at the center of the center,
here
in a Mandelbrot set of isthmuses fresh and salt,
here
at wasp waist corseted by lost and found oceans...
(2)
What
the world new and old is missing
is
objective comedy—
Columbus
the compact car
out
of which emerges an endless line of clowns
Marco
Polo the cosmonaut shot out of Italy like a new Midas
to
discover the Golden Horde.
What
is the exact date Britain discovers Hindus?
Where
is landfall?
Does
tribesman tattooed in woad
mark
the side of his wheelbarrow?
(3)
When
all is said and done blasphemy is an absurdly simple proposition:
first--create
an inner speech of any number of elements;
second—combine
& permute;
third—except.
THE
CHRONICLE (September
13, 2013):
today
slighty
west
of
El Malecón
was
dedicated
a
monolith of polished black granite
with
the full face of Rubén Darío in bas-relief
looking
up La Calle Calzada toward the center of the ancient city of Granada.
El
Malecón means “the jetty”.
The
jetty thrusts into the freshwater sea.
Calzada
means “road” or “heeled”.
On
the reverse
of
the monolith
facing
the jetty
in
large letters
is
Darío's La Fe:
En medio del abismo
de la duda
lleno de oscuridad, de sombra vana
hay una
estrella....
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera
(4)
Here winter is the
rhythm of rain
coming and going
like clockwork
day and night.
Here winter is the
rhythm of rain
on tiles and
corrugated roofing
with complex
subplots on bamboo
and barrels
on broad leaves in
inner gardens
on concrete as old
as Romeo
on streets and
sidewalks,
rain that sings and
talks
that stops and
chats
that whispers and
clatters
that bellows
that drowns
that cools and
cleans
that lightens with
monstrous thunderclaps
while a middle-aged
woman waits
under eaves
sees her chance
signs the cross
and dashes through
downpour in fear of electrocution.
Now and then there
are miracles—how harnessed horses
stay dry and docile
while the teamster bails
how (it seems) it
never hails
how dogs
disappear...
(5)
If rain is tears
time is
interlinear.
If rain is mercy
space is
transversal.
If rain is season
it is a station of
the cross.
(6)
THE
CHRONICLE (September
13, 2013):
[except]
until
today September 13, 2013 the main feature of El Malecón was
a
statue of El Fundador
Francisco
Hernández de Córdoba
back
to the freshwater sea
and
facing west
along La Calle Calzada to the center of the ancient city of Granada.
This
dramatic prospect is now interrupted by the backside of the monolith
of Rubén Darío,
drunkard
and admitted poet
no
child of Granada
founder
of nothing....
[E. A. Costa 15 October 2013]
