Month: April 2017
Mercury Still Retrograde
Earlier this month, took my son to see LaLaLand, then tried to play “City of Stars” on the ukulele. That’s when tendons in my carpal tunnel snapped. Makes it hard to hold a fork, so I used my fingers to hold the chicken while I cut it up this morning for the dog’s breakfast. That’s when I stabbed my finger. Mercury turns direct on May 4. I’d cross my fingers but, well…
Our Lady de la Corazon
In the heart of Punta Carretas, 19th-century colonialism meets 20th-century capitalism in the midst of 21st-century globalism. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart keeps her eye on everything.
La Punta de Punta Carretas
The southern most point of Montevideo, Uruguay.
South America Studies
Heading south to Uruguay in less than a month after fifteen years away. Getting so excited, I’m sketching the place in advance. Thanks, Google Maps!
Birds of South America
—Americana arrogantus
When summer comes, los uruguayos perch
Themselves on Maldonado’s Punta shore
Like seagulls, each aims a firm, fat belly
Boiled eggs in salted sun.
Across the border
Beyond the Rio de la Plata’s breeze
Argentinos strut through Buenos Aires
Proud as peacocks, their tilted coccyges
Bent back, cocksure, as if supporting plumes
Of opalescent eyes.
Over the Andes
In war-torn Santiago, los chilenos cuddle
Nuzzle—all in cooing, kissing pairs
A flock of plaza pigeons, not people
.
I mock them all, yes, yes—but I’m regal
Soaring above, a bald-headed eagle
San Fran Skyline 2
Started sketching while waiting to pick up my son from school. Then the bell rang, so I didn’t get to finish. Still, this small study seems to stand on its own.
San Fran Skyline 1
There’s a new skyscraper, the highest west of Chicago, going up downtown…
Baskets
Baskets
—for Annelies
Not the one carried by little red riding hood
Skipping through woods to grandma’s house
Not the metal one screwed to my first bike
Nor the netted one through which I swished
My first free throw: There’s another basket
One we sit in patiently, tomatoes at a corner store
Each awaiting fingers, a squeeze, a test to reject
We are all tomatoes: skinny, fat, juicy red
Embarrassed by our flaws, our absent hot-house taste
My own basket, woven now for fifty years
Not made of straw, not woven strips of wood
At some point, we leave our baskets on the street
Outside some corner store, out in the air
Bare for all to see, to poke and squeeze and sniff
Look — See that man skipping down the street?
He’s light as a feather, a strip of straw
A girl on her way to grandma’s house