New Poem for Weekend

The Innuendo of Owls

for Sam Peralta

Listen, do you hear it?

The sound of owls.

Reveling in their own voices, passing rumor, 

Aspersion, innuendo with each bass note: 

A sinister parliament.

-- from “Owls, after Kotaro Takamura”, Samuel Peralta

If I had the elaborate powers of night

I would do more than blunt day's scything

edges-- I would cloak fear in velvet lassitude 

I would envelope the lonely dog no one speaks to

At the end of its chain in the barrio.  In my arms

it would be safe to weep-- private, no one

to come with a bouquet of blame.

I would be the good darkness

That  laves the wounded heart

with its tongue.  I would close the eyes

of those for whom it is taking

too long to die.

We shake night from ourselves

and sluice down in rain water but even

an instant in the sun weakens us. 

We flee to Verona, the old quarter

Where the rose gardens enliven

the blurred frescoes of war. We wait

until the moon rises over the green silk scarf

of the Fiume Po. At moonrise  Dante

Steps forth from stone in the piazza; 

I love my infamy--

but do not go down into the Inferno.

There is no need. 

Furore.  Ah, Mio Cuore. 

Lucia, Juliette: non fa niente.

The altar is covered with roses. 

These are night's gifts, my dreams.

I come home through the barrio

looking at the tiny houses

their stillness, I scent their aroma

of tortillas.  I am the night, kiss incarnate

Kiss that soothes the troubled child, guards

the old woman who cannot hear

an intruder. I do not wish to be water. 

I am the barrio owl,  I am the soporific

For the fruitless battle raging

in the desert;  I spread my cloak over

the fallen and quench the lies

burning along the wires of time.

3 a.m.: I lock the car, and turn

and just then, there, the great-throated

voice, il basso profundo,

calling high in the withered oaks.

Copyright Jenne’ R. Andrews 2011