my thoughts' coffeeflet

a sort of kludgy lodging place for my life

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Lorna Dee Cervantes

I keep having a love/hate relationship with my classes this semester. I'm being pushed a lot, and let's face the music, who likes getting pushed, right? In the long run, I'm going to love that I've been pushed this semester, but I'm currently somewhat annoyed in it. Not so annoyed that I can't be grateful for it at the same time, however.

But this is not why I'm blogging. In women writers, we're reading some very different authors from different time periods and cultures, and this one poet I just finished reading is Mexican/Native American, born in California. As usual, I'm amazed at the poetry that we've read. So here goes:

Y Volver*
Lorna Dee Cervantes

Who is to say Love
with her battered face
won't come? Who's to know
she won't rise and run
her comb through clotted
hair and spray the scent
of mysterious apples
between her breasts?

She rises with the strength
of seeds and the rule of roots
riddling the sidewalk.
She is the hag who cries
for hours in the mewing
of lovers. She's the catch
in their sweaty breath,
the blush of rose wine
on the magnolia in winter.

She is her best in ice
when her swelling abides
and small mirrors litter
the lawns. She is the face
you casually scuff through
in the refuse of a storm.
She can't ever hear you
but she sings. She feeds

the blooming magpie
death until he's bloated
with the feast of her
leaving. She is the dried
blood gracing his wings.
Vengeful and forgiving,
her honor weighs in a few
blown stars, in the halo
that lingers in the west
when the launched nightship

explodes, in the one lie
she espouses in her heat,
the beat between her thighs,
the veldt** where she holds
you when you mean to go
free. Love, in her candor,
can't explain the attraction
but nuzzles the wild
horse's mane, and rides.



*And to come back (Spanish)
**Grassland of southern Africa

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