
aloe
blasted from grey-
green leaves
like an epiphany,
the scroll of your cello,
hooks and eyes,
or a hat stand
for your blue hat ?
the bright green pads
of the American aloe
(agave Americana)
signify
a kind of gaiety
sparse to the desert;
I hear that song
how high is the sky?
and I want to catch you,
you holding
the bare branch of aloe
as a part of your arm...
a saeta...
an arrow
saeta: a musical prayer sung in
Seville during Holy week, an offering, literally an arrow.
so the rose
allotted a fistful
of babies,
sprigs locked
into the ground,
new sisal (agave
sisilana) stays
to the shifting dunes
of Playa del Lunes
punctuate
our line of sight:
racing against shadow
camera ready
to seize
the silhouette
I step back ?
the point of its leaf
like a dagger
punctures my leg:
I look up
and see a crown
of thorns
bee-eater
a bee-eater,
harlequin plumage, bright
blue and grassy green
with a yellow rump,
a liquid quilp in the throat,
this cousin of the king-
fisher,
wings of an angel
pointed as knives,
brings the cut
into paradise - an epistle
from the gods"
we see it
every time we stop
on the way to La Polacra,
fluttering
above the field
of stones
that abuts
the stand of palm trees;
the sea beyond -lapis
lazuli - that calls us
with the strength
of a mirage, or,
as you following
the aloe -
the way
of all devotional art