En la manana verde
Queria ser Corazon.
Corazon
—“Cancioncilla del Primer Deseo” by Federico Garcia Lorca
Waves
roll in
all the way
from
Asia and
slam the shore.
Their
roar comforts
for reflecting / echoing
“heels,
two dozen,
pounding on wood
floors,
pulsing to
a flamenco beat.”
Ocean
mirrors ocean
and you surface—
*
Flamenco contains Ten
Commandments. First,
Dame
la verdad. Second,
Do it
in
time, en compas/s.
Third, do
not
reveal the others
to outsiders.
But
you can share
Federico Garcia
Lorca:
Y en la tarde madura
Queria ser ruisenor.
Ruisenor
—“Cancioncilla del Primer Deseo” by Federico Garcia Lorca
*
Once, I stepped
into a
story
I thought belonged
to me.
I
became a character
in it,
giving
the story all
the years
demanded
from my life.
But this
story
began long before
i entered
it.
Was I roaring
flamenco? Was
I
not whispering, Poetry?
It was
summer…
*
Hard
history, yes.
but it begins
with
nothing less
than sinuous twine
of
her hands,
perfectly-calibrated arch of
her
back, effortless syncopation
of her feet:
Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Ocean mirrors ocean.
Waves
tap out
the Morse Code
intricately
embroidered by
Carmen Amaya’s heels.
*
Carmen was “Gypsy
on four
sides.”
Blood is flamenco
is blood
is.
Carmen’s blood gave
her life
and
it also killed
her. She
possessed
“infantile kidneys,’ unable
to grow
larger
than a baby’s.
Carmen lived
as
long as she
did only
from
sweating so much
when she
danced.
At the end
of each
performance
her costumes were
drenched. You
could
pour sweat out
of her
shoes.
That was how
her body
cleansed
itself: the sweat
from a
dance.
Bailar o morir.
Dancing kept
her
alive. Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Poetry
as a way
of flesh-and-blood
living.
*
Documenting
the last
year of Carmen
reveals
the feral
lines of her
face
swollen with
fluid her infantile
kidneys
could not
eliminate. She sits
at
a rickety
table in a
dusty
neighborhood, like
her childhood slum.
She
taps the
table. One knock,
two.
Sufficient for
announcing the palo.
In
flamenco’s code
of rhythm, Carmen
rapped
the symphony
of a history
bleeding,
remembering all
the secrets her
tribe
kept from
outsiders. The secrets
translated
into rhythms
so bewilderingly beautiful
they
lured you
in like honeyed
drops
of nectar.
But you remained
hungry, could never
find your
way
back out again.
All you
wanted
was more burrowing
deep into
deepening
code. All you
wanted was
one
more secret of
the siren
Flamenco!
I arrived to
the secretive
ocean—
to the beach
house when
crimson
revealed the sun
ascending from
green
rippling glass where
earth gave
way.
I railed at
the light,
wanting
to break this
drug, this
desire
for more darkness
I could
golden
into Poetry’s most
ferocious, feral
flowers.
Ocean
mirrors ocean.
Pounding ocean mirrors
nails
pounding forth
a flamenco rhythm—
One more sip
at your
nectar,
please. Dear Ocean,
mirror me
damp
wet
drenched
sweating
waves of text
mirroring my
hand
pounding a keyboard
in flamenco’s
most
honeyed, most drugged,
most bleeding,
most
truthful and perfect
-ly timed
beat..
*
Afterwards,
the nightingale
blossoms to song.
*
Lorca pounded out:
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A Heart.
