Apropos of nothing

 Over the years there have been many versions of this poem, including on my CD “Libationsong” and in my book “Ideas of Improvisation”. But this is feeling like the final draft—

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS A MORNA BEFORE THE STORM

—por nha cretxeu

I don’t know why, 

but nearly every night 

sleep pulls me deeper 

than the harbor of Soncente, 

towards the fragrance 

of a woman whose footprints 

are txuba on the dry sand 

of my dreams.

Say her smile is Sal white,

her skin brown 

as the hills of Sanikolau,

her pout Bubista round,

her fingernails neat 

as Maiu’s streets.

Say her lips are bold 

as badiu di Santiagu,    

her eyes the green trees 

of Santu Antón,

her hair black

as Djarfogo’s back beaches.

Say her legs are Santa Luzia slender,

feet tiny as Brava.

Here waves foamy

as leite fresku

caress your legs,

palm trees bend in a breeze

and an airplane weaves

a white thread

through the sky’s blue silk—

who wouldn’t wish to bathe

in the divinity of her beach?

I kneel in the sand

to whisper:

“May her Kriolu tongue

someday become 

a sliver of kana

between my lips.”

But the Atlantic

is a Mae bedju claiming 

these islands are only 

ten pimples on a vast face.

My heart beats a koladera,        

why couldn’t these be 

West Africa's fingertips

reaching for America, 

reaching for me?

Tonight, the evil eye

of the moon appears 

shiny as the underside of a tuna.

Little terns are now questions 

circling in my mind. 

How far can I foolishly

trace my beloved’s footprints

through a dream’s shifting sand?

My pen tries to plough 

new lines across a barren page

and inclines brown stanzas 

into terraces up the hillside of hope

until the bentu lestri appears to bend 

the branches of all the trees

in the direction of one question—

will her seashell ears 

ever hear these waves of blood

breaking across the rock 

of my heart?