Read Poem: ETERNAL SUMMER SONATE, by Ulisses Santiago

Symphonic Poem in Five Movements

First movement
– Andante

Today I say dawn
as I could say stories and spring.
The sun takes on the tiny
presence of an atom
with its protons and neutrons
displacing thin threads of heat,
reflexes of anguish
liquor bubbles
placid floating of toasted pale skin
or an evening alarm
with its sedentary heel
or morning horn of the day.

Today I say morning
when the intention is to wake up to the sea,
wake up to pine trees
that claim the altitude of the palms
and border the universe with senile breath.
Nothing is decipherable beyond waiting,
beyond the waiting that spins
towards the voice, towards calm.
Towards the centaur that lies under
Neptune’s trunk,
under the trembling ruins of Hercules,
beyond Sisyphus
there is a cause,
a reason related
with hunger, with Cain
with the universal cry of the perfect angel,
there is party, ideology and a star channel
there is reason and channel after the lyre,
behind the Gregorian chants
behind the myth there is a force.
A glass of water
acquires a god
swallowing it acquires a rite,
a song and a deadly twilight.
So, to say morning
as I could say “stories” and “spring”,
has a lot to do with Aphrodite
with Dante and Bonaparte,
with a Bach concert
with a Sunday mass
with a cotton speck
perched on a wound,
has to do with the eternal
curse of existence.

Everything has to do with everything
from the soap bubbles
up to Hitchcock’s chair,
from Achilles’ pain
up to Einstein’s formula,
from genetic engineering
up to a plate of rice with beans.

Everything is a dictionary of processes,
a tuna sandwich with jam
tomatoes and steel ropes
where it hangs secure,
patient, and vital the wait.

Today I say dawn and I say land
like saying parrot, mountain,
Caribbean, streets, and stone.
Like saying I belong to the Parnassus,
to the bay, to the mud,
to the current avenue
of metals and rubber,
like saying I have
homeland and burger king,
I have Garcilaso and Llorens,
Rimbaud and Machu Pichu,
Hemingway and Picasso,
Fellini’s Rimini and the sunny streets of Ponce
I have Gongora and Mona Lisa,
the whole stream of Spain,
the vigorous pulp of Africa
the noble frown of Agueybaná
the steady hand of Betances.
I have it all
in a rhythmic sonata
of the eternal summer that throbs.

Here I begin by saying that it is dawn
like saying it is coffee time with milk,
it is time for a day’s work,
to start the car correctly,
turning the street corner with a hot engine
and look closely at the speedometer.

Author: poetryfest

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