With the Eyes of a Raptor
Two books contained in one volume. Poems filled with loss, memory, tragedy and humor.
Moon Over Andros Beach
in memory of Galit
Tonight the blacksmith moon hammers
a plating of silver on the Aegean Sea.
From the town of Chora, above, a halo
dim as candlelight spreads over the beach.
Daughter, your voice comes ashore,
lingers in the pools of liquid moonlight
left behind by the sea’s ebb. The waves
bring you back again and again.
The ceaseless churning and tumbling
of pebbles, history, and memory.
(page 8)
Mira La Luna
This land of the Hellenes rises
like Tenochtitlán, the ruins
of Teotihuacan and the Mexican moon.
Here Poseidon threw down his trident.
Athena planted her olive tree and claimed
the Acropolis. The gods favored her.
Athena’s moon is of olives and wine,
La Placa moon, taverna moon,
la llorona moon, gravestone moon.
“Mira la luna,” I said to my daughter.
It is still her moon. Forever.
(page 9)
Rio Grande
el rio grande
three words in Spanish or English
become the mud red water
the thunderheads with clouds
rain like a wide-skirted
walking woman or
narrow like a thin man
Navajos call this the Mexicans’ river and
female river while I prefer the rio bravo
the fearless river south of El Paso
it is the river of potsherds of dreams
a crying woman drowns her children
and looks for them in the mother ditch
her brambled arms grasp the shimmering air
it is the river near the Central Avenue Bridge
where I never find my daughter
blood red water flows over me
watermelon sun of dawn and twilight
rises and sets on the Albuquerque bosque
heat bakes the riverbed
cracks it like weathered shoe leather
the wind sweeps my ashes
across a crow’s blank gaze.
(pages 35-36)
in memory of Galit
Tonight the blacksmith moon hammers
a plating of silver on the Aegean Sea.
From the town of Chora, above, a halo
dim as candlelight spreads over the beach.
Daughter, your voice comes ashore,
lingers in the pools of liquid moonlight
left behind by the sea’s ebb. The waves
bring you back again and again.
The ceaseless churning and tumbling
of pebbles, history, and memory.
(page 8)
Mira La Luna
This land of the Hellenes rises
like Tenochtitlán, the ruins
of Teotihuacan and the Mexican moon.
Here Poseidon threw down his trident.
Athena planted her olive tree and claimed
the Acropolis. The gods favored her.
Athena’s moon is of olives and wine,
La Placa moon, taverna moon,
la llorona moon, gravestone moon.
“Mira la luna,” I said to my daughter.
It is still her moon. Forever.
(page 9)
Rio Grande
el rio grande
three words in Spanish or English
become the mud red water
the thunderheads with clouds
rain like a wide-skirted
walking woman or
narrow like a thin man
Navajos call this the Mexicans’ river and
female river while I prefer the rio bravo
the fearless river south of El Paso
it is the river of potsherds of dreams
a crying woman drowns her children
and looks for them in the mother ditch
her brambled arms grasp the shimmering air
it is the river near the Central Avenue Bridge
where I never find my daughter
blood red water flows over me
watermelon sun of dawn and twilight
rises and sets on the Albuquerque bosque
heat bakes the riverbed
cracks it like weathered shoe leather
the wind sweeps my ashes
across a crow’s blank gaze.
(pages 35-36)