Thursday, June 7, 2012

GARDEN OF ROCKS

artwork: ralph murre


GARDEN OF ROCKS
by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I sit in a garden of rocks.
I watch the woman of
the house burying a dead bird.

She begins to sing like the dead
bird. Her hair flaps in the
wind. Her head bobs up and down.

I see her lay flowers over
the grave. The day is sad
in this garden of rocks. I sit.
I’m restless like the wind. I want
to go and salute the
dead bird. But I lay down instead.

I sleep and have a lazy dream,
where a fragile bird dies.
I do not see how it happens.

I see only the gentle bird
down in my lazy dream.
I caress its soft, injured head.
I am awakened by the scent
of the flowers. The blue sky
and the green trees appear sad.

The woman of the house sings like
the dead bird. Her perfume
extinguishes death’s scent. Inside

she opens up a window and
she sings like the dead bird.
In a garden of rocks, I cry.

~ previously published in Garden of Rocks (Kendra Steiner Editions)