Past The Rocky Part

The world along the path is waking up: today the peepers were peeping, the birds singing, woodpeckers thrumming, and the snakes, well, coiling.  I had been expecting them to be coming out of whatever den they hibernate in here soon and today as I was running past the rocky part I heard them. The sound of unusual hissing. I stopped and sure enough, there was this roiling coil of small snakes.  These two women walking opposite came up to watch and we stood there fascinating, trying to come up with the name of this--I kept wanting to say "coven" but that's not right.  One of them said "gaggle" but no.  Dr. Google says a bed or nest, but that seems pretty tame.  One of the women said it sounded like fire.  What a great image, no? 

The other day I saw a muskrat in the water and then a small bundle of brown fur went shooting from one side to the other.  I caught up to it to see it was a mink.  So beautiful.  My father used to trap mink.  He was quite the hunter back in his day--mink was his favorite.  I couldn't wait to tell him what I'd saw, knowing how much he'd enjoy it, now that he can't get out much at all.  Also that the great blue heron are back flying so heavily overhead.

April is moving right along and poetry is happening in many and various places.  I hope poetry is finding you or you are finding poetry.  I know I'm trying....

Abyss

You and I, when we sleep, we're like whales
because fish swim out of my mouth
and you dishevel the seaweed.

We hear the scent of seashells, the oranges of Sóller:
drifting, taken;
without earth that belongs to us belonging to the Earth.

Two Moroccans inhale glue
and the vapor climbs to our bedchamber;
the city throws its lights against the ceiling,

and perhaps there are cops, and perhaps sirens,
and the air is full of ash,
but our night, our night is submarined.

Melcion Mateu
translated from the Catalan by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

The Paris Review
Spring 2013