Rockdale, Late Summer

I'm leaning into the wind
listening to the molecules
bouncing against each other
quiet as a parchment yellow wall

I'm imagining the taste of wine
aging in the sunlight
infused with operatic twilight
the faint aroma of Kools

I'm writing poems in my dreams
in the light from an old flame
against the window facing south
remembering a play by Oscar Wilde

It's late summer and the tomatoes are ripe
the marigolds are fragrant
the frogs are loud, the crickets are purring
piano music rolls likes waves across the lawn

I can hear my grandmother calling
"Supper time ..."
I am on my way
ready for every future possible.

Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax is Dead

In the rag-covered body on the ground
A man died here, just incidentally
This is not his home
This street, this pavement in Queens
Perhaps his home is in some corner of the park
Or that shelter over on 64th
Or maybe the cardboard tent under the bridge

But not this condo complex
Where nobody stopped to ask
Nobody dared
Or cared
Or had the brass
Even when lifting him up to see the blood

As he lay face down on the pavement
The gray cement cooling his face
On the early morning of his death
After his heroic struggle
In defense of a woman
The frail ideal of helplessness

The woman who ran away to who knows where
While the hero stayed behind to fight for her
Was stabbed for her
And bled for her and for many who did not call 911
Who did not stay and speak kind words to him
While his life blood ebbed away

Though he died without a friend,
Perhaps he found some glory,
Perhaps he was feasted by the angels
And comforted by the djinns or bodhisattvas
I like to think he would never again
Be called homeless.


Dedicated to Hugo Alfred Tale-Yax, a homeless man who fought a robber for a woman who fled, and who died April 24, 2010 while people passed by without stopping to help.

New Wind

The wind came out of Navajo country
across the plains
through the tops of the pines
sliding beneath the fur of
the four-footeds close to the ground

At first I thought it might be
the raw wind, the heartless wind
that lashes the elms and oaks
on its way from the gray-spotted waves
far to the east

But no, it was the kindly, deep, auburn wind
the wind with the talismans of deeds
the wind of the wise counsel
new responsibilities
the wind that confirms our ancestry

We belong to this land now
whether European, Asian or African orphans
the wind and mountains have molded us
the edges of the ocean have reminded us
of our origins

Boned by midwives
winnowed by witches
encased in hummingbird nest
struggling for purchase
on the tallest branch

Swooping down to the mole's lair
underneath the gloaming
eyes squinted at fairies
waiting for that wind - that prince of wind
to carry us off to our real home

In the arms of the new wind
not the wind of summer
mysterious blackness and crickets
dancing in the elven rings

Not the wind of winter
stern father to our labors
swallowing sound in a long whistle
weeping in ice dreams

We are lodged in the eternal heart
of mother wind like a walnut
that her owl will bear away
with secrets safe
in the moon's shadow.