For W.H. Auden:
In honor of Funeral Blues
Your procession has twisted
round the alleyways of my mind.
You came to me in a letter.
Had I known that years later
your mourners would carry the image of
my mother into the fade of woods, ocean, and sky.
Neruda. En La Memoria
In honor of Solo la Muerte
Your purple river lures you quietly with watery
hands stained with crushed violets.
Curling fingers of wet leaves find the pooling
hollows of your heart. You look to the trees,
to the rush of birds overhead.
How do you greet your admiral?
Extend a hand, bow gracefully as the river turns.
Dark behind you.
the secret places of sparrows 