Abuelita Esmeralda

And thus through many seasons’ space/This little Island may survive/But Nature, though we mark her not, Will take away — may cease to give. -Floating Island, Dorothy Wordsworth

Quilt made by Dorothy

The rain keeps on falling and the river keeps on rising,

I can’t tell if it’s the women in the church singing,

Or the echo of this river ringing.

The corrugated steel roof makes the rain sound like the endless clip of an AK-47,

Sometimes it really is tumultuous gunfire and others just God’s desire.

The river is climbing, I swear it’s beneath me,

But it slowly fades away, the heavens on its knees.

And after this cacophonous flood, I’m sure now it’s the faithful that are singing,

Sunrise hymns in tune with the roosters and xolotas.

Even amidst these off-key voices, I hear one that rhymes true and never leaves me blue.

As the water lessens and the puddles remain,

The green of the jungle reminds me I’m sane.

After a silence comes the pat, pat, pat of each morning,

Corn ground pure by mortar and pestle,

The daily routine with which she must wrestle.

Pat, pat, pat, pat and one more tortilla,

Abuelita Esmeralda and an ave maría

-C.H.

Last summer, I went to the little wood next to my house.

Last summer, I went to the little wood next to my house.
I waited until the beginning of the evening
when the sun gently began to set.
I took a ball and went to pick the blackberries.
I enjoyed it despite the thorns’ bruises I knew I would get.
The bees where buzzing around.
I started picking up the blackberries.
There were so many. Some really dark and ripe
and others going from a light pink to a vibrant red.
I knew I would come back in a couple of days.
It was really quite. There were just the mountains,
on which the sun was setting, surrounding me.
The same old ones. They have always been by my side.
Picking the blackberries I was thinking
of the jam and pies I would bake
still facing the mountains from the kitchen’s window.

-E.R.

“I paddled as lonely as a cloud”

or “He paddled as solitary as a…”

Man as immersed into and part of nature or rather an intruder? A good question for anyone contemplating this picture I have just taken.

In any case, such a scenery on an ‘ordinary’ morning in spring really invites to write poetry and to capture the moment as the ‘extraordinary’.
Or is it an ‘extraordinary’ scenery that just needs to be described in ‘ordinary language’? I wonder what Wordsworth or Mary Shelley would answer to this question  – A.K

Daffodils

Daffodils in the Olympic Park of Lausanne-C.S.

daffs are out

-R.N.