Author: carmenbugan

Thirty-one years ago today,

The other end of the world

Stung as if we were looking

Directly into the sun;

Since then we learned

To look at the sunlit ground.

*

On this day, we send our love

To those who are scaling the wall,

Those who are stepping

On a precarious raft,

Those who are hiding

In the boxes stacked on a truck:

We know it isn’t play or malice

That make you take this road.

On this day, we send our love

And our hope that you will land

As we did, on the verdant earth

Among welcoming people.

*

The ground has fallen

From under you, we know,

Just like the road vanished

From under our feet.

On this day, when we recall

Those first days of freedom

We send you our love: for

You will need every kind word.

November 17, 2020, on the anniversary of my family’s immigration to America

The day has shortened, hours are

Books between tightened bookends,

Light slants into the under-growth.

The sun places its last kiss on the roses

As insects devour their dying leaves.

And so the summer sighs into fall:

This is the autumn I have no words for.

Apple picking, meals with friends—

Distant memory. Fear gnaws at the heart.

The virus, like a sickness of the conscience

Has spread together with the war among

The righteous. Hope rattles its inflamed lungs.

Justice coughs, kindness wheezes and spits,

Faith plays double game with oath

And governance, truth has lost both legs.

*

I see us dancing in the kitchen years ago,

Salted vine leaves on the wooden board, herbs,

Mother holding house the way the breast-bone

Covers the heart from whatever could strike,

Father calling for the music, “Children, where

Is the cassette?” We were on Helen Street.

There are calls. There is silence during

The calls. There are quiet walks in the garden

After the calls. The virus roams.

The sun has shortened its working hours.

Time pushes its bookends of light closer

Together. Many will not see the winter.

*

We walk around the yew tree. Blue jays

Hide inside tight-wound branches.

The back garden is a busy landing strip.

A cardinal perches on the kitchen rails,

The chipmunk family argues in the gutters

By the stairs, crickets in widened cracks

Sing away the nights in the basement,

As I pace upstairs in the dark kitchen;

A wood-pecker knocks on the dormer:

Here is the harvest brought by these

Visiting creatures—memories squirreling

Their freedoms away:

Now I see her, never happy on her own

But glowing whenever we were with her,

I see her taking her smile from our faces.

                                       –October 2020

Beyond the Dancing Ledge the salt breeze widens

And whispers into caves, but its sound at times

Hurls itself underground, then rises just as a hum

To where my feet, blistered and determined

Meet the old path. I search again with

Sea-tasting hair in dry mouth –

The weight of winspit, wishspit, windspit

Love which opens to love of sorts:

Pub table, drenched clothes, white cliffs;

At the end of today’s walk over the sound

Of sea under the path, sudden soft

Explosions through gaps and tunnels, underfoot.

From Lilies from America

I am delighted to have this interview with my friend Wallis Wilde Menozzi published in the literary journal of our wonderful University of Michigan.

Language and Myth: Carmen Bugan interviews Wallis Wilde-Menozzi

Writing ‘Heart-to-Heart’ About Political Discontent

https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/writing-a-novel-in-verse

A Zoom Author Visit with Carmen Bugan, Ph.D.

The Poetry of Our Universe (A Zoom Event)

The Arrow of Time

 

We are in the backyard

With our children at night

Looking at the stars:

 

“The light of the Orion Nebula

Began its journey to us

At the time of the Roman Empire.”

 

Time expands, now we live

Fourteen billions years after

The beginning of time.

 

Space widens and grows

Larger, the space arrow

Follows the arrow of time.

 

Energy, which is heat,

Decreases, it’s much colder

Now in the Universe,

 

“Even on a hot day like this,”

You say. But it’s hot

Inside the nebulae–

 

Those “beds of young stars”

That are cooling down

As they grow into adulthood.

 

*

 

And so, since we’re star dust,

How can we not embrace

Our temperate onward journey,

 

The office and the living

Room, their ample space

For each, with time alone?

 

The marriage is made

Of words and the space

Between each of them.

 

I search the Orion Nebula

On our wedding anniversary—

Our two young stars grow.

 

*

 

Last evening on our walk

We saw a pair of red cardinals

Chase each other on the street.

 

I couldn’t stop thinking

About good omens,

Their loyalty to one another.

 

A house later, a baby hawk

Attacked a nest of sparrows,

And the tiny birds pecked

 

At the hawk’s wings, cried

Together, coordinated missile

Attacks, one after the other

 

Till the hawk flew to the top

Of the chimney. When

It returned, it hit the nest

 

And we left when wings

Flapped in branches,

Saw the mother hawk

 

Watch the hunt from

The top of the chimney,

Large and glorious.

 

No matter how small we are,

Fear disappears when it’s

Time to protect the nest.

 

*

 

There are many things

We see in the quieter world

These days of Lockdown.

 

Schools of fish ruffle

The sea surface, now that

Few boats disturb the water.

 

Two monarch butterflies

Circle around us

Outside the front door.

 

A flock of quails waddles

Through the back garden,

Roses blossom constellations.

 

Silence feels airy between us.

Time won’t retrace itself.

Yet, in your eyes I see

 

Our past together, one

Single arrow aiming

The way of the stars.

 

 

 

2 August 2020

 

 

 

Poetry and Prayer