Ojalá que llueva café en el campo
If only it would rain coffee in the fields
-Juan Luis Guerra, 1989
Last night
a child’s version of night sky
the half-moon grazing the darkened curve of Beacon Hill
clouds white and wispy resting gently above
too light to have pushed the moon
from its rightful place at the top of black paper.
Once we leave childhood
we look only up –
if we look at all –
science and vocabulary, physics and theory
no longer content to imagine
celestial beings
bounty and treasure stored just out of reach
in something once called heavens
a wish for coffee to rain on parched fields
a shower of yucca, sweet potato, ñame
rice and wheat
a yearning for hunger and sorrow
to be soothed from blessings that rain down
once it was manna that kept hopes alive
when souls shriveled in a desert without horizon
tiny beads of yellow resin
dropped from tamarisk trees
enough, just enough, to make a struggle bearable.
Last night
we spoke of souls
poetry –
who speaks of souls and poetry at a cocktail party? –
of the raw, embarrassing pain
asleep for years
awakened now and again
when you reread a page or two your teenage notebook
close it again quickly
return the pain to its deep slumber
back to the form of the fairy tale
where all that is too beautiful
or wise
must pass unnoticed in thorn-protected slumber
to awaken again
with the kiss of promise
to a world that just might make room
for its shape.
If only
we could stay awake
hang the moon low and touchable
share the simplicity of sorrow
the longing for high hills of wheat and grain
strawberries lush and juicy in the mouths of children
no longer hungry
singing in the fields
chanting an innocent plea
to be washed in the rain of coffee.