Reflections
Night Song, Sahara
Words—shrill, enigmatic, pierce the night air
while krakebs, hand-held, rattle
like the shackled ankles of ancestors long deceased.
Somewhere between sound and silence,
where time is marked in strident ascent,
we meet.
Okavango Delta
Leaving the baobab tree behind,
we glide through the grasses,
shivering the gilded surface of the swamp
as the setting sun pulls the mokoros home.
Abuela, Vinales
As a plough furrows land, preparing it for seed
you have lived a life of caring,
sowing comfort and cultivating possibilities.
There are seasons given for growth,
but no limit on seasons for love.
Argument, Camaguey
Watching an argument in a foreign language
is an exercise in sound and gesture.
Anger has its own timbre;
gesture confirms.
Something has come between these two men.
It is as obvious as the fencing against the wall.
Can it be as easily removed?
Witness, Atlas Mountains
She opened her house to us for a price
but that price has not been paid.
From the back of the room we watch, unseen
witness to her anger, hostage to our shame.
Vantage Point
Is this how it ends?
Where the water meets the land,
Where the sun sinks between sea and sky.
And this slim fringe of shifting sand.
Is all that remains?
Coming from the East
Where water shimmers in morning light
I stand here, on a crest in California
Perplexed by anxiety, a dread, a foreboding
Knowing my country in all its glory
Stretches behind me—
As if the shadows on wave and shore
Foreshadow something more
Then just another evening
And an invisible hand presses me back saying,
“Yes”
“This is how it ends.”
Underpass, Tokyo
I do not want to linger here.
The space is dark, cavernous, unwelcoming.
The air chills and cars rumbling above disturb.
Walking quickly, I come upon a wall.
Seized by its color and energy I stop,
held fast by scraps of celebrity long-past.
There, amid the faces that promise excitement
and the foods that promise enjoyment,
a small, black book offered in plastic—
“I AM”—promises eternal life.
North Station - Tokyo
Behind me, North Station tunnels
pour people from track to street,
flooding the crossing
on the pulse of changing lights
Caught in the crowd
I’m swept further into the night
and gasp at the awful,
throbbing clamor of too much.
Overwhelmed by incandescence
and the surge of passing bodies
I seek a sign I can transcend.
Ahead, a man in a fedora
stops to check his phone.
My father wore a fedora-fifty years ago
and half a world away.
It is enough.
Warehouse, Havanna
A man sits unaware
that he is the counterpoint
to the rhythm around him,
the patterned cadence of scudding clouds,
the pulsing meter of light and dark,
his stillness—the offbeat in this measure of time.
He does not know this.
But we do.
Samurai Cowboy - Hokkaido
They menace, those hanging fish
glistening like rifles in the sun
but the cowboy watching them
won’t be driving cattle to Kansas.
There are no open ranges near
this eye-blink of a village—
only trees and Lake Shikotsu.
Samurai, cowboy or both?
This hero is without borders.
Legends give us permission to dream.
We create icons in tangible form.