Or a map. Breadcrumbs.
A way out. A way back.

In Santa Lucia, near Vejer, the scarlet
hibiscus folds like an umbrella
with the setting sun, unfurls with first light.
Aperture.
Unseen.
Remembered.
Like the garden, the first
garden, the garden within.

xxx
xxx
As a child, I mistook a plastic uterus
for the inner ear.
Canal.
Portal.
At bedtime, my mother
gently pulled my lobes closer
to see, tell stories of the potatoes
and squash blossoms growing
inside.

xxx
Lately, I’m barren, unable to write.
Poetry is too pretty, like ballet,
seems beside the point, overwrought,
too too clever.
And now I too am missing.
Lost between the cupboard
and sink. Lost to sanitizing
and serving. To keep peace, I try on
the rhythm of others, but that doesn’t end
the unintended trampling of toes.

xxx
xxx
Lynne, look to the sky.
There are birds, lots of them.
Lots of them.
Migrating.

I’m in the garden with the hibiscus.
I look up.
It’s the autumnal flight of storks,
the world without end.

Throngs of proud birds
passing passing passing,
joyous configurations
without pause.

When the movement thins, the last
birds swirl round and round, and the leader
looks for any stragglers
before moving on, beyond sight,
into a pale sky.

Pageantry gone,
I’ve Stendhal’s syndrome —
the affliction of having seen
too much beauty,
like swallowing too much air,
I lie down in the cool, dark room
arms outstretched, try on the fanfare
of the southbound muster,
Ciconia ciconia’s endlessly moving
ribbon, relive the raucous freedom
of convergence
from all points north
in congregation
for the great migration
over
the Strait of Gibraltar,
each bird having birthed
or having been born
into this ecstatic crossing.

Their journey, a reverse of mine,
from Tangier to Tarifa, to the garden
with red hibiscus,
on a floating portal
across the Strait
amidst hundreds of immigrant families
whose tongues spoke every possibility,
who converged like birds.
My ears, whirling pistils of receptivity,
heard angelic voices as I merged,
and recalled how I merged,
with that abundant phalanx
of boundless life —

xxx
Benediction.