The wind has scoured the branches clean, but the old concrete dog standing at point in the shelter of the lilac still wears a coat of snow.
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The wind has scoured the branches clean, but the old concrete dog standing at point in the shelter of the lilac still wears a coat of snow.
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“What is it that really matters? For the poppy, that the poppy disclose its red: for the cabbage, that it run up into weakly fiery flower.” ~ D.H. Lawrence
The kid wearing nothing but a hoodie and jeans
swoops across the boulevard on his skateboard.
The light changes. No snow, but it’s freezing.
Cars are distant specks, always moving closer.
Early enough in the day, or in between.
The wind has scoured the branches clean,
but stone dogs and lions (stubbornly paired,
flanking doorways) still wear their coats
of snow. Beneath the scratchy layers of wool
and viscose, I want to rub my hands together
to make a little flame; to steeple my fingers
then spring the gates open to a frenzy of wings,
nestled bodies– all those jeweled dreams
tumbling from the rafters and onto my lap.
~ Luisa A. Igloria
01 13 2011
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Porches have this way of noting counterpoints:
an anomaly of shorn branches, blackened leaves
rotting in snow, a hiatus of spring hinted coyly
by bare bramble bloomed past a promised season
when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…
but the old concrete dog standing at point
in the shelter of the lilac still wears a coat of snow,
like all memento mori—still and unmoved
though life and laughter teem around hearths
and homes and hearts that remember:
Rover razzing rabbits out of cabbage patches,
Rover playing catch where twigs snapped
and whipped from wind and whistle were
what passed, when retrieved, as love from
a canine’s best friend, Rover roughing up crayfish
strayed on breakwater boulders in lost beaches,
Rover at the foot of the rocking chair whimpering
when the chair was empty and forever still.
When the wind had scoured the branches clean,
Rover pined and pawed at a stone marker and left.
There is a Canaan after this absence of foliage
and this reign of gloom, as frisky as remembrances
of the dog now sheltered by blackened lilac bushes
still standing at point, an old concrete dog
that wears a coat of snow. There is a covenant
in the whistle of the wind: the leaves will be back
on their twigs soon, and snow will be swept off
this sentry’s back, but memories like fallen lilac
will cover its back before it wears a coat of snow.
— ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mr. Bonta,
I have been reading Luisa Igloria’s poems triggered by your ligne donnee (given line), and I just had to chime in with mine. I marvel at how this is truly a limbering exercise for the poet’s mind, and how Luisa has created gems out of your Morning Porch lines. May I join you and her in this bright creation of beauty and thought?
ALBERT
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Mr. Casuga – Of course you may! The more, the merrier, and I’m honored. If you decide to post this elsewhere, just be sure to link back to this page.
A very musical poem! Apparently the statue in my yard doesn’t mark the grave of a long-gone pet — or so various former residents have said. I’m not so sure.
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Thank you, Mr. Bonta. I reposted the poem in my litblog (ambit’s gambit) with notes about your Morning Porch and your collaboration with Luisa Igloria. See you at the porch tomorrow.
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Nice header! (-;