The Angel

There are angels walking among us.
That, I am certain. And ever grateful.

Noah's Ark

Marooned twilight

The picture within

"And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon." - Edward Lear

Dichotomy

"She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything else in the world, but only

for his own sake." - Love in the time of cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

Starbucks

Counting time

This road ends at the old sea-

wall wedged beyond the possibility

of going any further. The options left

are to fly, swim/drown, or turn back

seek the mountain. There is an uneasy

sense of sinking when surrounded by water.
Perhaps all endings feel that way.

The hourglass broken open(

Tumultuous winds and high seas

have smashed it against the age-

old battered shores. Time languishes

present, and equally absent here.
Its vague pulse counted by the dying waves

counter-intuitive to one's heart,

lost to a sense of direction.

There are roughly ten-thousand grains

of sand in a handful, sometimes enough

to measure an entire minute of life.
Trickling now between my fingers.

In seconds.

_ _ _

Stroll down memory lane

_ _ _

To see a world in a grain of sand

and a heaven in a wildflower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hand

and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

"An arrow pierces the universe." (Juarroz)

_ _ _

An arrow pierces the universe.

It doesn't matter who shot it.

It crosses equally fluid and solid,

visible and invisible.

Trying to figure out where it's going would be

like imagining a wall around nothing.

Arrow from the anonymous to the anonymous,

from a void that isn't its origin

toward another void that isn't its destination.

Movement not resembling movement

but ecstasy constantly renewed.

I find the arrow in your hand

or you find it in my thought.

I can see it entering a cloud,

cutting a bird in two,

emerging from flowers and rains,

splitting a blindness,

penetrating the dead.

Perhaps its model anonymity

summons us to our own anonymity,

to be able also to liberate ourselves

from our beginning and our end.

(for Laura)

- Roberto Juarroz, tr. by Mary Crow

Street signs

Ablaze

Holding breath