Title inspired by a poem, Pal of my Heart, author unknown

given to me in the late 1970s

by Jacquelyn Fowler

 

 

 

 

“Oh Wendy

No need for fake flowers

Do hope you haven’t searched for them

I want no more

Death does not need things

It stands along”

—From a letter written by Jackie, August 1991

I say to Jackie

Tell me what I should bring you

From Santa Fe

She answers flowers

Those big paper flowers

In purple and turquoise

And the red of my old Mexican serape

So I find paper flowers

In purple and turquoise

And the red of her old Mexican serape

I find them in pink too

And I find them in yellow

Bright as field mustard

Blooming in February

On the hills of San Clemente

And I carry them home

To her

In a brown shopping bag

With Artisanos

Printed in blue on its side

 

Put on your concha belt

I say to her in my dream

Pull on your suede boots

We’ll go to Chichicastenango now

And buy an olla for your flowers

Or we could fly to Peru

And climb the high snow peaks

The ice peaks

Where spaceships land behind midnight

In light from quartz crystals

That reflect a trillion stars

That reflect our years

God will listen to us there

 

She and I know each other

Across a thousand generations

Of Seagulls

Our sons have become men

Our words turn the ocean’s breath

Into poems

While a tin angel

Rusting in the night air by her window

Sings a te deum 

 

Amiga de mi corazón

Amiga de mi corazón

I have no more words

I have no song

But here are a few ordinary

Paper flowers

I carried home in a shopping bag

Tell Death to look the other way

Look the other way     Death

When I give them

To you

 

*From Poets are the bravest, pub.date: 2001