Pablo drives to the hot baths of Parral
in polite shorts and kind blue collared shirt
contemplating love and a woman he knew
when he was young and still unhurt
— if there were words to whisper he left them
un-whispered as he walked and wondered to himself
1. between the shadow and the soul
he slips along the tall shadows of the impending night
footstep by soulstep by leapt to conclusion and buttery sigh
by salty innuendo — until he arrives
he finds his way to Thermas of Catillo,
pushes his elding legs into the warm mineral water
and for a moment his body remembers his soul
every ache of bone becomes a memory
of a perfect love loved imperfectly
every tautness of muscle becomes a prayer
for the lovely sex of his honeyed youth
2. as if you were on fire from within
Pablo drives home by the silence of a radio
blaring the Opera Nacional
He heard not a note over the din of his heartbeat
He felt nothing but the licking of the flames
along the underbelly of his love
Gone away with winter as he spent this Easter moment
without God or hope
His flesh now salved by the baths
the fire inside did nothing to keep him warm
Pablo arrives home, with 20 loves poems and a song of despair,
before the waning gibbous breaks the horizon
3. if suddenly you forget me
Pablo strips naked
sits at a plain chair at his worn teak desk
draws a pad of paper and a black pen from the drawer
and starts to write a letter to a woman far away
“you were my dear, my darling once,
before the withering of our love
before that lovely soul that was but you and me
dashed through life bittersweet
and left us with nothing of ourselves”
he stops, crumples the paper into a ball
tosses it into the rubbish bin.
Naked and alone
he begins again, “My once and nevermore darling,
if you should forget me, this would be a blessing
to your soul, but even now without the honesty of love
to to tell our lies, I hope you do not. ”
4. yet I seem to glimpse you in every window
A poet sees what he sees, a moment
a ray of sunshine slicing through the trees — hope
where no hope could ever be.
Night where this is only night to see.
It is late when the moon begins her story,
later when his heart breaks in the telling.
“I see you,” he mutters
out the window to the place where no one is
except his daughter
whom the Nazi’s stole away.
Out every window he says again
and again through tears, “I see you.
O my beloved baby girl, I see you.”
The moon is too high to see when his tears stop.
5. I was the owner of my own darkness
From some nowhere nowhen yet and still
too near to tell you with words
I watch the poet love
and love again, and tell this story,
this untellable story, to his own self
The night is everdark and darkening
but love — he loves he loves and he loves again.
The poet saw her, years ago in Spain
being older and lovelier and present
as his true love became a lie.
I watch him trace her face —
the graying of her hair, the path of chickadees
from her eyes to her hairline —
word by word onto the paper before him.
The dark grows darker, still he loves
and hows this darkness is his
and his alone to become
or leave unnamed.
6. drunk with the great starry void
Pablo, naked, lies down
on his creaking bed
pulls a Mapucha blanket over himself
and becomes the void
star by star this moment imbibes a life
another life, another and another
until drunk about the blackness
every dream is the dream of dancing
Cueca dances
every song is a loud voice demanding
through torrents of laughter, “yes
we must have a good time!”
she is there
there in the dream
to love
and love
and love again.
he is tipsy on the love
as he snores the starry void into his soul.
7. I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps
while Pablo sleeps
I scour Chilé for myself
and all the poems he wrote
that will, upon the hearing,
become me one day.
the poet steps like a calamity of words
flowing downhill mile by mile
begging to be measured for distance
I search for something solid,
but there is nothing but the echo,
“Rise up to be born with me, brother.
Give me your hand from the deep”
Pablo, even in his sleep, speaks
to me and so I rise
I rise and rise — to be born.
For love and Pablo’s sake.
8. you and I are like two plants that grew together, roots entwined
He does not hear me when he wakes up,
the sun and every sky from then to now
hushes the veracity of the truth, “For you
I am here.
I stand, a monkey puzzle
to be left unsolved outside his window.
I close my eyes.
Pablo’s eyes are open for the both of us.
He stands beside me, we are entangled
by the roots of our poetry.
He is thinking about love again
Love of Chile. Love of his wife.
Love of his daughter.
Love and love and love — always love
again.
“Together,” I tell him, “we are you.”
I am not yet born so he does not hear me.
So, still, I watch Pablo love.
9. you are lightning glancing off the peach trees
In the afternoon, the clouds slump over the mountain,
smirking gray and obvious
ready to reward irritation with irritation
ire with ire
fire with fire
the clouds cackle thunder like a whip in search of a horse
the lightning longs for sweetness
and fidgets with the peach trees
bolt by bolt, breeze by breeze
Pablo watches from his window,
knowing, yes, yes, dear god, yes
this is love as well.
10. I knew rooms full of ashes, tunnels where the moon had lived
That was Easter one March so long ago,
I knew how the burning would leave
only ashes and me
Until I was born to forget that bodiless being,
me, watching Pablo love
breaking inside
become nothing but tunnels about the flesh
where the moon lives and plays
until
politics and memory leave him
dying before he can be dead
in the murk that comes with Pinochet.
epilogue
Pablo is murdered by ideologues
— men without poetry or love.
I watch him love
though he is gone
I watch him
I watch him love and love and love again
and cry
