busy
I know, I know, I'm supposed have posted a Guam retrospective by now, but I've been extremely busy. Busy at work, busy at the jobs besides my full-time, busy getting ST off to Costa Rica for his bachelors shin-dig (going on a trip is a bachelor tradition amongst ST's friends, and he's the last one) busy whisking my mom around town to make the final decisions about and arrangements for the wedding (which is coming up a month from Wednesday -- *bargle*), just busy all around. I tell you, there's never a dull moment around these parts. At least lately.
In lieu of the actual travel log and reflections that I owe, I'm posting a couple of poems about Guam that I wrote somewhere over the ocean between the American territory and Japan. They don't really tell the story of what I did in Guam, but hopefully they convey how the trip made me feel.
Generosity
There are trees here called flame.
A woman carver on her way to a festival of the same name
gave me a gift. Two bright teardrops
of orange spondalis to hang form my ears.
I tried to pay, but she smiled and gestured at the space around her--
the heat, the cramped shop with concrete walls painted a festive
ocean color, filled with every kind of beautiful thing. Her good fortune.
"From Guam," she said with a wink, turning so that her heavy dark hair
curled across her profile like a door gently closing.
Letter to my fiance
My love, what day is it?
I've been on island: sandy beachfront across the highway from jungle.
To find me, turn right at the K-mart, used to be the biggest in the world. No one
knows the name of the road. If you ask, the Chamorros will draw you a map.
In the parking lot crabs make their way carefully, seeming drunk as they totter
on their eight close legs. I stop to coo at them, same as I do the squirrels at home.
After all they are the same color, and like their mainland cousins,
they are skittering, amiable thieves.
It is bright afternoon here, love.
I have a watch tucked beneath my hotel pillow
that keeps track of the hour where you are,
but I don't need it to know the air there is cool and dark.
I want to be in both places at once. To tuck my nose
in the crook of your neck, not fearning the future.
How can it be that half-a-world separates us?
That I can be standing in tomorrow without you
munching dried beef and breadfruit in the sun.
**Obviously, this is all copy written so, don't copy.
Hope that goes a little ways as a mea culpa. The rest is an IOU.
In lieu of the actual travel log and reflections that I owe, I'm posting a couple of poems about Guam that I wrote somewhere over the ocean between the American territory and Japan. They don't really tell the story of what I did in Guam, but hopefully they convey how the trip made me feel.
Generosity
There are trees here called flame.
A woman carver on her way to a festival of the same name
gave me a gift. Two bright teardrops
of orange spondalis to hang form my ears.
I tried to pay, but she smiled and gestured at the space around her--
the heat, the cramped shop with concrete walls painted a festive
ocean color, filled with every kind of beautiful thing. Her good fortune.
"From Guam," she said with a wink, turning so that her heavy dark hair
curled across her profile like a door gently closing.
Letter to my fiance
My love, what day is it?
I've been on island: sandy beachfront across the highway from jungle.
To find me, turn right at the K-mart, used to be the biggest in the world. No one
knows the name of the road. If you ask, the Chamorros will draw you a map.
In the parking lot crabs make their way carefully, seeming drunk as they totter
on their eight close legs. I stop to coo at them, same as I do the squirrels at home.
After all they are the same color, and like their mainland cousins,
they are skittering, amiable thieves.
It is bright afternoon here, love.
I have a watch tucked beneath my hotel pillow
that keeps track of the hour where you are,
but I don't need it to know the air there is cool and dark.
I want to be in both places at once. To tuck my nose
in the crook of your neck, not fearning the future.
How can it be that half-a-world separates us?
That I can be standing in tomorrow without you
munching dried beef and breadfruit in the sun.
**Obviously, this is all copy written so, don't copy.
Hope that goes a little ways as a mea culpa. The rest is an IOU.