WASHES I stretch out across the white-sheeted bed in my sea-colored room dappled with filtered sunlight I fall asleep, Don Quijote’s spine splayed above my head & I awaken to the sound of rain I peer through the open wooden slats of my window The sky is solid white with low clouds laying upon the sea grey & rolling, rolling white Thunder tumbles through this early afternoon This morning I sat out in the sandy courtyard to eat & could not I sat out here to write & could not I watched the white sun play tag with the clouds I wished it would rain, that it would so I could hide away within these blue walls where no-one could disturb me I feel like delving into this poetry to flesh out the sketches I have begun to give life to them I want to give birth to more & more poems But I am filled with hesitancy to hold my poems within these hands & to shape them My journal looms with its fleshless events Fear I may forget washes into me & I shrink away Then once more I expand to embrace the words & once more I contract A TOWN AWAKENING In the morning twilight, a pair of women washes dishes on a corner. Then one places the oilcloth over the tables where soon they’ll serve pupusas & coffee. She stacks the plates in the rack, recounts the silverware. The second checks the swelled corn before taking it to be ground. The beans are on the fire. A drunk stumbles & sways past on the other side of the road. In front of a shop, a man sweeps yesterday’s trash into the street. The broom’s swish is lost on the rumble of a passing bus. Pigeons swoop down from the tops of buildings. They peck along the ground. A skinny golden dog sniffs the garbage in the gutter. A graying-haired woman in experienced haste sets up her general store stand. The tarp overhang is stretched, items placed on shelves. A woman stops to buy eggs & sugar. A pick-up truck drives towards the market. Baskets & crates stack a-back, full of bananas, cabbage, tomatoes. Wood boards clank as they build make-shift stalls. Mangos & melons, green-topped onions & braided garlic mound. The rattle of a dolly, the groan & hiss of bus brakes, the laughter of men’s conversations. A radio is turned on somewhere. The sounds of this town awakening swell around the pupusa woman who sits, chin on hand, at one of the tables, waiting for her comadre to return from the mill. YEARNING THE SEA I. A child is crying when I fall into a visionless sleep … & I awaken in the dark to a voice & the perfume of a night flower my journey soon will continue wending, twisting from snowy mountains to warmer lands II. In this lower place the days grow thick with storms never to break the sky heavy the horizon hazed I long to hear the wash of rains all day, all night with a crisp explosion of thunder III. I need to journey once more in search of the rain the sea & in my fatigue as I await my near- midnight hour departure once more I smell the sweet perfume of some flower IV. This new day I awaken to flat, flat plains & nearer to another range alpenglow-bathed in the sunrise Still too far from the sea, the rain the thunder LISTENING This three-quarter moon brightens the paths & brush In the breeze of the lessening tide sway salt bush & muyuyo The night air washed with the constant whisper of waves washing upon worn lava & here I sit, listening to this night listening …
Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose writings appear in over 300 journals on six continents, and 19 collections – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, with works in the anthologies Drive: Women’s True Stories from the Open Road (Seal Press, 2002) and V!VA List Latin America (Viva Travel Guides, 2007), as well as articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or http://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.