The Beacon Hill Canto
I.
I
will pay for the breeze, brief as it is,
rippling
across the shroud of green leaves
over
the ravine, on this sun brightened day,
in
my Beacon Hill neighborhood,
where
life is idle,
and
Dylan Thomas would pronounce it good.
On
rainy days even, it boasts of a solitary café:
[The
Station],
as
in a station of the metro,
“the
apparitions of these faces in a crowd”
(a
small intimate crowd it is),
“petals
on a wet, black, bough.”
And
would it have been worth it,
to
order a tea, coffee, or cocoa,
marshmallow
or orange marmalade
that
will take you to another level of glad?
Like
a walk from the house at a fresh hour of the morn,
inclined
so slightly is 18th Avenue South,
spritely
I jaunt past houses with eaves and green paint,
past
shrubs manicured and the variegated roses that grace
communal
pledges that we made
to
rescue each from days that are sad,
as
the gardens were mastered by gardeners
who
measure without malice and weigh without hate.
II.
Cross
Beacon Hill Avenue with me to the Red Apple,
a
house of plenty on this hilltop.
Take
your sums from the Wells Fargo ATM,
go
inside the store and give your eyes a feast,
and
remember to purchase a book of stamps,
for
letters to connect with Texas and Tennessee.
Let’s
now continue past the branch library,
but
we will not linger now, for there is time,
time
for you and time for me,
time
for the hope of the woman,
even
though the principle has been hijacked
by
the congressional corporations.
O
Ezra Pound, where are you now?
Thou
were the CEO of Modernist Poetry.
Why
did you take up residence at Saint Elizabeth?
Oh
well we won’t go see the Muse,
and
even without a single glimpse of the Muse,
the
walk must go on; we shall go on.
III.
Inside
his mind was the Muse.
And
she moves on, as the river;
as
the water, she moves on.
Stones
will not impede her.
Shameless
she provides,
in
the estuary,
when
birds rest from their flight.
IV.
That
was another time.
He
was on an island most of his days,
protected
from unprivileged eyes.
V.
She
called for the sky,
there
came the sky.
She
wanted rain.
She
became fertile again.
VI.
As
I walk now past the bicycle shop
again
on Beacon Hill Avenue,
I
am of this place and of this time.
There
is another coffee shop,
but
I won’t mention it by name when
the
streets parade by with their designations
Horton
and Hinds, Spokane at the Fire Station.
This
is the loneliness of a long-distance intellectual,
the
prelude with the pen that can enslave
better
than an interminable sentence.
VII.
De la sierra, morena
Cielito lindo vienen bajando
Un par de ojitos negros
Cielito lindo de contrabando
Cielito lindo vienen bajando
Un par de ojitos negros
Cielito lindo de contrabando
Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y
no llores
Porque cantando se alegran
Cielito lindo los corazones
Porque cantando se alegran
Cielito lindo los corazones
VIII.
We
do not object.
We
do not object to its price.
Jin
tien wo men cher fan
Wo
men do shih cher fan
“In
the café the women come and go,
talking
of Michaelangelo.”