Author: miguel

One cold night in February

with snow from last week’s storm

still piled up against the door,

a old friend phoned and asked,

“How are you?”

To our surprise, I said,

”I feel like a wooden chest

made in Prague or Warsaw

too many years ago to mention,

painted yellow, like the sun,

but faded after miles and years

of bruises, dents and scuffs.

“A chest discovered in a thrift store

in West L.A. by two friends,

one brunette, the other blonde,

who took it home and set it in

a sunny corner near the door

so it would be the first thing seen

by all who came to visit.

“On its top, they put a green glass lamp

and three glass bowls, with

slender shoots of young bamboo–

all light, all green, all bright

all Spring.”

© 2004 J.M. Keating

(In memory of Eugenio Montale)

 

It’s raining on the cedars and the Easter eggs and

raining on the dancers and the bishop’s motorcade.

It’s raining on Chet Baker’s flugelhorn and on the fog that coils

around the hearts of lovers

waiting to be asked to dance.

It’s raining in ballrooms in Jerusalem and raining

in the House of Representatives, raining on the pilgrims

wading in the waters that flood the Savior’s tomb, raining

on the hearts of seekers

waiting for the hidden sun.

It’s raining on the lovers on the Vía de Los Sueños,

raining in the Virgin’s womb and on the fog that came to us

in March and never left and raining on the rain that closed the doors

on lonely hearts the day

they said Chet Baker died.

It’s raining on us all as we beg for it to cease and raining

on the faithful waiting for Godot to roll away the stone and lift the fog,

and praying for the Angel to sound the flugelhorn and bring the

sun in hopes that Jesus sees his shadow,

or else it’s going to rain

on all of us forever.

© 2006 J.M. Keating

A storm from Africa visited the island during the night.

In the morning, giant clouds carrying the dust of the Sahara

billow high above the waves, like lemon-colored sails.

In a chalk-white house at the edge of the beach, a woman

sleeps alone on a rumpled bed:

blue sheets, white pillow, amber skin.

Outside her window, palm fronds snap in the wind

but she hears only the gentle breathing of

a man asleep on the other side of the world.

She feels his heartbeat through a thread as thin as a strand of saffron

that he has looped around his wrist. When she releases her end

of the thread, they will both tumble, together, into the clouds.

© 2007 J.M. Keating

Formentera, Spain