Author: miguel

(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

1.

The curtain opens.

It is dawn somewhere.

A boy pries open the

door of what used to be

his home and stumbles into

 

a rubbled landscape of

what used to be his village

and his family’s olive trees

uprooted by bulldozers

and treaties pledging peace.

Teacups, photographs and

his mother’s eyeglasses crunch

beneath his feet like eggshells.

He hears the drone of helicopters and

the hammering of plowshares

being beaten into AK-47s

and hospital beds and

the voice of a soprano

singing a cappella Somewhere

Over The Rainbow.

 

2-

At midday in a desert

under an indifferent sun

three small dots of green appear:

The first two are the

sneakers a little girl is

wearing. The third spot

is the green shirt worn

by a boy in an oil-on-canvas

portrait she carries

in the basket of the

bicycle she pedals

as she follows the

dust clouds of

regiments of theologians

retreating from the

latest siege of Bethlehem

toward a mountain in

the distance where

one of their Holy Books

insists eternity begins.

3.

Twilight curls like smoke

into darkness and the singer’s

voice quavers into silence

as the rainbow evaporates

and the boy and girl embrace

inside an empty room.

Snow sifts down around

them in dark red flakes the

size of olive leaves. The

throb of helicopter

gunships grows louder.

She gives him the portrait and

he gives her the apple he has bitten.

Outside in the fields women

are harvesting bones.

Commandos slide down cables from

the gunships as the snow deepens.

The curtain drops slowly as.

the audience heaves a sigh and

everyone goes back to sleep.

© 2015 J.M.Keating