I Beat the Sunrise for You [by Sharon Dolin]

Mojácar la Vieja, my constant view  

As a final post, I had thought to share a draft of one of the Goya poems I wrote about in my previous post, but they are so unfledged, I can’t bring myself to do so. Instead, I’ll offer one of the other poems I wrote while here, this one drafted at dawn because the birds are so loud here they woke me up. I leave it to the reader to determine if I am overly indebted to Lorca. Seguirillas is one of the rhythms used by palmeros (hand clappers) in Flamenco.

I Beat the Sunrise for You

 

beat the first dawn birds

their syncopated seguirillas

for hoisting the gold-grey

Cyclops eye

beat the moon’s retreat, the star’s

                        decline, beat the Earth’s hum and its breathing

gecko heat, the espaliered tree

            the hooting doves, beat my own

                        awakeness, my desperate ear for you

but I know I didn’t beat you.

            You’re already up, you’ve been up

                        for hours—all day—on the other side

of this churning Atlantic

            before the locust moon, the scorpion

                        afternoon, before your first

sweat and your last shiver

            I’ve beat them all with this white

                        tea on this plank of wood

before this veined view of twin mounts

            I’ve beat my death, even yours

                        no blood in the mouth

no stone under tongue

            no lock on my thigh

                        no, no why to your sigh. 

Comments

[Jim Cummins]

I like this. It's hard to write grown-up love poems.