Day Two in Guatemala City
Day Two in Guatemala City
Outside, a rooster crows.
It is dark before dawn,
and I hear a voice from my past,
repeating wisdom that farmers know,
having experienced it through
a lifetime of toil:
you can’t slip daylight
past a rooster.
I hear another rooster,
and then many others as they write
their poems to foil
night’s dominion, its fog and dew,
from this urban landscape. I know
you will sleep past dawn,
unaware of the wind that blows
soft, a breath against a lover’s ear.
7 thoughts on "Day Two in Guatemala City"
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I love how this poem speaks to the role of the poet: “as they write/their poems to foil/night’s dominion…”
Growing up on a farm, I was not annoyed by the roster crowing. In a way, a rooster was my family’s alarm clock, and this morning in Guatemala, memories were ignited by a rooster outside my door.
Now I know what my roosters
are doing when they crow
in the middle of the night
…”writing poems”!
Yes, Jim, writing poems except at midnight which, in folklore is a death omen.
I, too, love the way you seamlessly weave the act of writing poems into natural occurrences of expression, such as roosters crowing
Thanks, Gaby, there is the way of writing poems about poets most people never listen for… I learned that technique by reading other poets and pondering how they wrote. You have been a faithful reader. I am in Guatemala and I don’t get to read as much as I did when I was in the States–slow, slow connection…
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