“A Valentine for Akumal”

                                                    Verde, que te quiero verde        — Federico García Lorca                                                                         

Oh, how I love your ever-green jungle, everything blooming

Or bearing or ready to be born, sometimes all three at once

On the same delirious plants: your coconut palms, for instance,

Under ever-sashaying fronds, five or six clusters of fruits

 

And flowers in all stages of production, year-round. How much

I learn from them.  And from your birds.  I love their constant mating

Ballets. How do they keep at it all day? Every day? Waiting

For them to cease and desist would be like waiting for the sun

 

To eclipse the moon.  Your cocoa brown doves do it

On the one bare branch in all that berry-filled tree next to my

Balcony, shamelessly.  Oh, so much fertility! My eyes

Have died and gone to Heaven, and that’s not even to begin

 

Naming what’s in your Eden under the sea.  Look, Valentine,

See? I’m blossoming, I’m bearing, even as I speak. Be mine.

 

 

Ingrid Wendt, first published in online journal Cascadia

https://cascadiareview.org/category/ingrid-wendt/

 

Ingrid Wendt, based in Eugene, Oregon, is the author of five books of poems, co-editor of two book-length anthologies, and a teaching guide. She is also one of the editors, with Marti Johnston, of the art insert in the recent Calyx Journal which featured the murals of the 2019 and 2020 Akumal Arts Festival. While staying in Mary Henderson’s Casa Tranquilidad, she offered a poetry workshop for children on February 10, at Hekab Be. Ingrid is a frequent visitor to Akumal and thinks of it as her heart’s second home. “A Valentine for Akumal,” written during a three-month artist residency at Ondarte, has been published online along with another Akumal poem, “Morning Meditation.” Find them by googling her name plus poem titles, or go to her website: https://ingridwendt.com.