Wednesday, April 02, 2008 April rising By Leticia Suarez-Orendain
MY yearlong project to produce prose poems is nearing the finish line.
I started this endeavor last year in June and now that I’m at the home stretch, I just feel weary and cheerless, as from a long trek in a rickety bus through a rainy night.
With nothing but darkness and the rhytmic pelting of the rain, my heart grows faint. Even when the hour of light draws nearer, and home and bed wait for me, my heart still feels heavy.
It dawns on me that this project has been a time-consuming activity that turned out to be of no function or value.
But like all things I do in life, I will finish the project no matter how discouraged I am, and then I will close the door and move on. No looking back as heart-broken heroines do in mushy, love stories.
I always tell my old friend Rose whenever I find whole eggs thrown to my face: “This day will pass by. I will just wash my face.”
As long as my useless activities, my errors, and my failures don’t touch my soul, I will continue to wash my face after each raw-egg incident.
I can even make scrambled eggs out of them, maybe even add wedged, ripe tomatoes and grated cheese, but not today.
For now, here’s my second to the last prose poem, “April rising.”
Your hour shines
When the Ram positions itself
In quiet, verdant dales
Dotted with wild, white daisies
Methodically grazing
The richness of the earth
The Ram looks up:
“Is that the crackle of lightning?
Do I smell rain coming?”
Before the first silvery drops
Moisten the grassy fare
The Ram scampers
Dainty hooves
Digging the earth
To a nearby lean-to
For shelter
The steel-grey horizon
Evokes fear
In its brave but tiny heart
Water is its enemy
It abhores water
As roses hate getting
Their feet wet
The sages say fire
Is the Ram’s element
Strange fire, dual fire
Fire that tans juicy game
Skewered with two fat sticks
Aroma pleasing the gods
Same fire that feeds on
The rage of a lover scorned
Same fire that makes a meal
Out of wooden houses
Gray with age
And yet same fire
That warms the chilled
Thunder startles the Ram,
Pushing it deeper into
The lean-to
“The rain will not
Be coming today.”
In the depths
Of the shelter
The Ram recalls
Mars its master
He with winged feet
Brings glad tidings
To mortals weak
With bleats that echo
In the valley
The Ram ragains
Its courage
It carefully steps out
Breathes in
The green aroma
Of tender grass
