Tag Archives: saudade
Saudade Exchange Rate
Let this table not wobble, my coffee not spill. Let me not offend an old friend, remember how to pronounce the name of your hometown before I get there. Let it not rain in New York City Friday night. Let … Continue reading
Filed under Morning Poems, Night Poems, Overnight Poems
Our Saudade
It revolved around Boston, the Cape, Amherst, the Vineyard, Woburn, an entire state— our common ground. You— with your accent and clearly delineated roots. Me— with a brief history, my mother’s story, and an incurable longing no word in English … Continue reading
Filed under Morning Poems, Overnight Poems
A Darker Pomegranate
I collect dates as if they were door handles. Seek the perfectly shaped one to build a saudade life around. Your birth, or death, or the afternoon you got divorced— it could be one of those. But I choose to … Continue reading
Filed under Afternoon Poems, Morning Poems, Night Poems, Overnight Poems
Pacific Saudade
This Noguchi sculpture encased in glass on the departures level inside the San Francisco Airport soothes my incurable longing for what those Big Sur rocks would not release. That he could have been my soul mate doesn’t matter—he’s been gone … Continue reading
Filed under Night Poems
Another Pronunciation
Saudade isn’t saudade if it is satisfied. When she least expects it, other dreams come into focus under the lights. Dust of desire becomes frenzied particles she won’t try to collect. She’s reaching over the fence with its crumbling limestone … Continue reading
Filed under Overnight Poems
Letter #3 to the Mississippi
She seeks a childhood face along the East Bank, diverted and spilled onto an empty road, old railroad tracks framing its riverside. That this widening band of water flowing south could be the same river as the tiny channel she … Continue reading
Filed under Afternoon Poems
No Equivalent
In English. The sea is a false promise of return, ebb and flow, rhythmic come and go, the Portuguese fisherman’s saudade, the Korean cane cutter’s han, the American salesman building a heartland, longing for salt and brine he has never … Continue reading
Filed under Night Poems
