Extracts from Up to Earth : An Ecopoesy Chapbook
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| "Nature's Introspection" by Edel Romay |
By Armando Rendón
Day’s Trilogy
The morning calms
In the trough below,
the darkness of night holds
for a few moments more;
Venus winks still, near the horizon;
a pale disk of a moon
faces up to its pall,
and light makes its way
across rooftops onto the bay;
forcing out the dawn.
The sun glints back
from windows across there,
whole buildings glance back
daring to take the heat;
light floods the waters;
islands, bridges, shorelines
come awake.
Morning is come.
Light like no other
If light can be crisp,
it crackles underfoot here
and distances contract:
the Embarcadero is down
by the end of the next street over,
Alcatraz lies within arm’s reach,
and the bridges are fences
thrown up overnight
around the pond at my feet.
Here and there, triangles of light
have been cut out,
leaving myriad black sundials
on the hillsides to tell the time of day:
on cue a moment arrives
when the very air stands still,
the waters freeze-frame
and the light is like no other.
Night falls
Seconds ago, scoopfuls of light
faceted the bay;
countless prisms shimmered,
blinding to the glance;
a tumble of fog rearing up
behind the hag-toothed headlands
eclipsed the cosmic sky
throwing up a bulky hand
to thwart the brilliance;
in moments, the waters
turned a hammered grey,
the wind dropped,
one last sailboat, its cloths furled,
chugged toward its mooring;
waves, lapping at the rocks
bolstering the frail shore,
piped up to lend their slap-slap
applause to the close of day;
the lights across the bay shone
against the shuttered sky;
a deepening blackness
twinned the points of light,
and the transformation took.
Zarzamora
Hace dos veranos pasados
que corte esa planta espinosa
hacia al suelo, pensando
que había sacado hasta la
raíz,
que no volvería jamás
mis camisas a enganchar
dando bayas frágiles
amargas, velludas, casi
secas…
ha regresado, brotando
ojas de un verde oculto
ni siquiera un tallo
pero sobrevivirá…
aún…
ni lo pienso cortarlo
otra vez; se ha atrevesado
para darme una lección
de un poder profundo
allí
dentro de la tierra, dentro de
la raíz, de la semilla
el secreto insondable
de que la vida
es.
Blackberry
Two summers ago
cut the prickly plant
to the ground, thought
I’d pulled its roots
out,
wouldn’t come back
to catch at my shirt
push out puny berries
sour, hairy, mostly
dry…
it’s back, sprouting
dark green leaves
barely a stem showing
but it will survive…
yet…
how can I bear to cut it
once again; it presumes
to teach me a lesson
about some power
deep
inside the earth, inside
the root, the seed
the unfathomable
secret of what life
is.
Armando Rendón is editor of “Somos en escrito.” A native of San Antonio, Texas, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is offering this his first collection of poems “to creation itself, all life as we find it around us in the most unlikely places and things.” A novel aimed at young readers that is part fantasy, science fiction and autohistory, is due out in the spring 2013. To order copies of this chapbook in softcover or E-Book, please contact: Palibrio Press, at orders@palibrio.comor write 1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomington, IN 47403.