Another revision

 AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION 

AS A SEASCAPE WITH VESSEL

(for Cesaria Evora)

“She sang beyond the genius of the sea.”

 

I love how

what impresses

more than your swollen footprints

in the Saõ Vicente sand

is your ghost verses

appearing to order

a light from the tallest mast

and how your voice

rising or falling, 

almost swirls into a salty 

island breeze

to enter

the man-made 

reef of rusted hull

which remains of my dreams.

Your genius—half mountain mist,

half cliff of crashing wave—

is somehow a migrating sun

—is that why Cesaria 

the aria in your name

carries the whistle of whalers 

who tracked

(with a star’s glint 

in one eye and a squint 

in the other) 

only a whale song’s

speckled fins? 

Since even gliding gulls

fear the plunge that follows,

I—ever cautious with 

what I overhear of you

in the dive bars of harmony —

also fear what might 

tumble down

your ballad’s seaside cliff

as you measure to the minute

your sodade. She left me

only this record—

how do I balance 

on my head

the simple truth 

of how often the sea 

and the song of salt are

in the same skeleton 

key—which both darkens

and enlightens

what one finds

inside every word

by driftwood

word?

 

Cizé, I miss 

how the brown 

liquor of your voice

—dark voice of the sea—

now bottled 

on heaven’s higher shelf 

carried more Marlboro blaze 

than Coast Guard’s 

finger of searchlight.

Perhaps the barnacled hull

of my skull will never 

comprehend how

your contralto illuminated 

our dunes with so many waves 

of lunar light.

A constant cry

of yours—though

I don’t understand

its Kriolu signs—

becomes a medley

of whale spout

rising in Atlantic moonlight.

She left me 

only this record—

a mirror of my flaring vices

as the sea flames

under your solar voice?

Since falling tears also 

reflect lunar shine, 

are the traces I still taste

drops of your faith 

on the cheeks of sodade?

Tonight I watch 

Mindelo don

her ebony negligee 

and knot a sequined

scarf of stars 

around her head 

before mulling

in her Atlantic mirror 

what tariff of tide

I still must pay 

as I listen 

to you slipping

off your shoes

to pace a place

I still aim to go

while the sea

of your song

washes over 

every word

by barefoot

word.