This moon is killing me tonight,
Veronique.  Somehow the bougainvillea dark
against the balcony brings me back
to Old Gringo and those dusky figures in white
gliding to a tempo I only guess at.
Some slow waltz mixed with ranchera
echoes through the patio, the smell of tequila
and the taste of salt on my tongue.

Ay, vida mía, háblame.  Si no, me muero
de tristeza.

This moon is killing me:  too many dusty trails
to Duel in the Sun while my son wrestles
there en el desierto de Newhall.

That slender princess of Rome, long gone,
long gone, her tiara riveted forever to her head.
Alabanza, Princesa, alabanza.

Atticus resurrects himself in my blood,
clenches his jaw
                     against the night and the rope
                         that waits to kill hope.

Some clear star comes through tonight, Veronique,
wishes us well.  Maybe like Twain
   a comet will come to carry me off.
       Better yet, let it be some brown-skinned angel
          who remembers this old gringo
               and Mexican nights.

 

Halloween, l998

(On the occasion of John Glenn's
 second flight in space)

 

Gonna be hard to leave the sunset
tonight, Lord; strata clouds
stretch impossible pink over the edge
of evening dark like an overflowing
bowl.  Rough eucalyptus kernels
kicked, then lifted to smell,
fragrance my hands.
An almost moon, swelling
to harvest full, leans toward
tiny Venus.  John Glenn's up there,
too, having his final thrilling laps.

Gonna be hard to leave
the earth, Lord; these Indian
summer evenings when pumpkins
settle into dusk, zucchini
snake along the vines, deer
eat the last watermelons,

trees prepare a feast for our eyes.

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard"...How can any other
existence match this crisp,
this twinkly, this wood-chocolate
October eve when spirits come to call.

 

---

Anne Candelaria  An Illinois native and graduate of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, B.A. & M.A., Anne Candelaria moved to California in l961. She taught Spanish and English, primarily in the Santa Clarita Valley but also at Santa Monica City College and in Culver City. She has taught English in Bogota, Colombia and in Guadalajara, Mexico. She has one son, (a 1990 California Arts Scholar) and presently lives in Morro Bay.

Her poems have been published by Papier-Mache Press, I’m Becoming the Woman I’ve Wanted, by Feathermoon Press, WY, Pleasures, a chapbook with three Wyoming poets, in Rivertalk, Ojai, CA, Where Poets Gather, Vol I, II, Taproot Press, San Luis Obispo, When We Were Young,Santa Barbara Community of Voices, Café Solo, Solo Press, Carpenteria, CA, Art/Life, Ventura, CA and by California State Poetry Society, Poetry Newsletter. In 2003 her poem "Ode to the Paso Doble" won a scholarship to the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference.

Active in the poetry community, she was honored to serve as the 2002 San Luis Obispo Co. and City Poet Laureate.

 

 

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