L'aura del Campo

Two December '13 prose poems

#51
Post-a-card to Gary from PZ

Ten minutes past the angelus and you aren’t here… You never have been.

After bells stop ringing my ears, the song of the city returns: whistles and chirps from black birds, chatter from park benches, the noise of traffic that shows no patience or knows but doesn’t care. You’re there, Gare, and I sit alone in this balcony chair.

What can I see that you can’t? Lights of the season flicker and cotton candy and churros beckon. The festival of spending money has quickened; pockets thin and avarice thickens. ‘Tis a season that has abandoned all virtue for a bank note, the only note it can croak.

But you are there where snow hushes the jingles, those incessant jingles and annoying loops playing the same tunes over and over and … There are few birds and those hungry. The season of cotton candy is long past when powder sugar sifts from the skies. But here or there it’s the same festival of spend, spend, spend.

Lights blink; lights flicker. The church empties, spilling out joy, but the streets remain full of sadness.

© Kåre Enga 11.diciembre.2013

#52
The Angel from Cayetano

A young man sleeps. Pierced ear, pierced eyebrow, well-trimmed hair on his head, hole in his jeans. His tennis shoes stretch to the edge of the bench. Maybe his dreams are accompanied by the rain, soft drops drowned out by the band of youth singing on the other side of the market. Nothing wakes him. He does not move.

Others take respite from getting wet. They carry umbrellas, a bottle in hand, suck candy. A young girl puts hair in her mouth while we wait for the bus. We hardly hear the back-up peeps or squeaks of turning wheels. One comes in windshield wipers scattering drops.

What is clear here if not the rain cleansed air? There’s a certain peacefulness albeit not quiet. Even clouds boomed just once today. No one harbors anger. No one bothers the bird or two that sought shelter. A brown bitch noses the boxes for scraps. I avert my eyes in this Season of Asking for Money, or shake my head.

The young man doesn’t see the hard-to-decipher looks he receives. Now his arms strike a different pose. He doesn’t know there’s a fly foraging on him.

I avert my eyes in this Season-of-Asking-for-Money, or shake my head. Bread sits behind cases; shoes rest in windows, benches at the market terminal fill then empty, then fill again.

The angel rouses, stumbles to the bus for San Cayetano, a young drunk with a wink in his eye going home.

© Kåre Enga 14.diciembre.2013.

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