Alicia Viguer-Espert

Remembering the Monastery

 

Between the damaged roof and the walnut tree

slightly to the right, I watched Venus appear

using a celestial method long discovered

by astronomers who registered astral details

as we, scribes, illuminated manuscripts

in the dim light of the scriptorium.

 

Those days were sacred, when a robin

sitting on the window sill to preen its tail

caught the brothers’ attention and they

lifted their heads from smooth parchment,

interrupted grinding lapis for a minute

to smile at birds’ ease to reach heaven.

 

Today the empty monastery stands silent,

stone walls crumbled, beehives destroyed,

all bees dying in clusters from pesticides,

its orchard burned years ago, the pigsty

covered with ivy, only a single walnut tree

stands by the wooden door cracked by sun,

 

which, like me, was once new and strong.

In those clear mornings nothing was futile,

the bundles we carried were not burdens

but a fair exchange for the gifts received,

silence, blue skies, tolling bells falling

like rain in May when it was most needed.

 

The roads leading to that door were infinite

and no wind blowing over the hills stopped

a pilgrim seeking the solace of an inner 

contact with Andromeda, Cassiopeia, or

their own soul, from getting their reward.

In another life, eons ago, I must have been

 

one of those monks waiting for the Beloved,

leaning on the walnut tree, closed eyes focused

on the heart chakra counting each breath,

which like heartbeats, connected to my soul.

I remember an eagle resting on that same tree

tried to tell me a secret, but I didn’t listen.

Letter to My Iranian Lover

 

In the old days, voices connected by wire

Now waves carry them unbounded

To our palms, no strings attached

Floating just like our lives

In a limbo of our doing.

 

I think of seagulls’ long calls

Waiting for the sun to warm

Tail and wing to fly away

Early in the morning.

You recognize the behavior.

 

I picture you as a tolling bell

Calling the faithful to Mass

More than the muezzin of youth

Forgotten so effortlessly.

Move away, watch structures crumble

 

Under foreign pressures,

Non halal food, reshaped ideology,

Those openly inviting women

Exactly like open face sandwiches

At Grenouille’s near the Sacré Coeur.

 

Yesterday I visited your mother

Old now, opaque film interferes

With her field of vision, a common experience.

My heart flares up like fireworks knowing

I may be the one weeping when she dies.

 

I won’t join you in Paris,

You’ll never return to our blue beaches,

The Madrassa, Ibrahim’s workshops.

Nor walk by fruit stalls showing their colors,

The one thing you have not shown me.

 

 

Remembering Paris

 

We walk arm on arm,

rain splatters on slate rooftops.

You say, I love you.

 

Everything stops

rain, moon, the wind even.

 

I open my mouth

to lick what I can.

 

It won’t last

two more days of sun

over the sidewalk

and everything will dry