You want angels, too?
: The blind of wings slashed through
by wind and light like bars. Yes, like bars.
As though everything was abruptly solid.
: The flames against the tree’s
rough bark. Around the tree’s black bark.
: What wind, what light. : I think
I never saw the light like this
in the Cordillera. When I didn’t know
what young was. : How I knew
the girl in Tinqui by the way
she held blue gentians and let the goats
nuzzle her small, hard palms. :
That she could not speak by the way
she loved the ravens and still
did not envy them the sky or flight, :
but saw them in their stuttered luster,
their wings hard against the light
like bars across the wind. :
Like time, a stick across
the slatted world. : What
wind, what light. And wings, fire. :
These blazing parishioners of life.