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Al Rocheleau

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Taos (for Marjie)

You are kindred.

You see no difference, though difference
is hurled at you like paint from a painted desert;

you absorb it, through the pores to the blood,
but its the same blood, warm and human.

There are those who can neither see
the filament that glows and drives your chosen saint,
however slowly, to his source.
You are not one of those, of course.

At times your music’s etched in Spanish inlay
thrummed from two strings singing unison,
or at the well of tears and untuned dirges
holds fractured notes in the clef of a stable calm.

You are kindred, frayed yet strung
as daughter/mother to father/son
as lovers hung on pins that trace
the map of Providence’s face
from Brown to Banff, to Santa Fe.

Red clay beads the rain
and pours from the lip of the umbrella
meant for sun; I wait for you, for two in Taos
in my heart, my kindred heart.
Your kindred city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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