Extracts from Love When You Say Love
By Odilia Rivera Santos
Poem 114
We wait for nothing and vie for everything,
scrambling to not be left with hands empty.
An aspect of freefall overtakes our interactions, love.
Your mischievous nature lulls us into a sense
of childishness that we so long for, and
you use distractions to make us smile—
as a photographer does with puppet in hand.
And in this state we see something beyond
the ordinary, being seen ordinary without your spark.
The way this magic resides both in a human soul
and in tree bark from the simplest tree astounds me, love.
Even when you do wrong, you cannot really.
Would it not be too much for this sensation, pleasure,
flavor, and distance from cynics to last forever?
It might be best done the way most love is—
with passion and hunger assuaged by a delicate end.
As I sit near you and recite my troubles,
you are patient and kind, and then almost before
words are spoken, I retract the statement.
I do not mean to be a critic and to make
of our union something iniquitous.
Perhaps I will begin again with a line that suits
the romantic, as my true self should be.
~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~
Poem 78
I hold your words between my lips
and speak others while yours
dangle expectantly
and in the morning
upon rising
my first thought is of you
and the memory of your quick stride
as if the world were on fire.
Your gait expressing that desire
to be away and on to another race.
I wait with no anticipation because
I know too much to care too much
or don’t care to chase or get lost
down a wrong road running faster as signs
say it is the wrong direction
the wrong way—
are you listening?
I hold your words like crumpled
receipts in my pockets
unsure of what was said when
to whom
why
or where
and adding them up as an accountant would.
I wonder if I spent too much of what
was mine or yours or ours and if the account is empty.
I hold your words on my tongue
as light in darkness
a meal in hunger
a spring in winter.
Love, I hold your words dear.
~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~
I dedicate this poem to my country, Puerto Rico.
I sing the blues as I refuse
to accept your demise
thinking instead my country is
in a dormant state soon to awaken
at the rooster’s call as always
refreshed and spirited.
I speak of my Puerto Rico,
my love, my origin of being
the source of memory and dreams
and all matter of things.
These words might be deemed
clichés were they not true—
true to my soul and marrow.
I sing the blues as I refuse
to accept you’ve gone too far
from home to find your way back.
My country, my island, my barrio
will return to her rightful place
and call out for her children
spread thin throughout stranger’s lands.
I sing the blues as I refuse
to accept words which attribute
my intellect or beauty to another race
and remind you I am not up for adoption.
This self originated and renews itself
despite travel to faraway places
and educations in Spanish and English
and diasporic fragmentation
from one source—
the country of my origin from which
genius and virtuosity was born before.
You say I look
seem
could be
speak
as though and I say no—
I could not be anything but
Puerto Rican.
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| Odilia Rivera Santos |