Poets' Corner

Children of Galveston

I was not there at the shriek of the place,
the clamoring swirl of the storm,
nor did I view the engulfing rush
that signaled the mountain sea's mourn,
I could not save the children as they struggled to swim,
nor the Sister brought down to her knees

Was it they who were calling to the roar of the wind
for their mother, they said was their Queen?
I did not see them taken in the wave's wide embrace
or at the first morning glimmer of light
Voices all lost in the froth of despair,
then muffled by darkness of night.

I was there at the end when we found them all bound
each tucked by a trust given hand,
they looked peaceful and loved
as if in a dream
and wrapped in warm blankets of sand.

Diego Santiago

Author notes
Based on a true account of the Galveston hurricane of 1900. A number of children from a Catholic orphanage were found in the sand; each knotted to a rope tied to one of the Sisters. Before they faced the storm, the Sisters of the Order sang a hymn, The Queen of the Waves. It was a hymn that was well loved among sailor and fishermen.]

Pain Can be Seen

It hovers in a plain of Dali-esque transcendence
above the blood
quiet and pallid, cool and indifferent,
a sword of crystal
unsheathed from experience.

Its prismatic features catching light that accents corners
at the edges of your scream,
taking you beyond the threshold,
to stop in fascination
as if you are on a walk in space,
floating easy, away from your ship, and leaving feeling behind.

The shape of pain, am I the first to notice?
If I tell, someone will they will make it into a cross?

Diego Santiago

Author notes
Dali-esque: Salvador Dali was a surrealist painter from

Spain

who became well known in the 1930s for his Dada like perspectives and bright colors.

You at the End of Spring

Victor Borge used a sight gag that had a person off stage yell, "Spring in the air,"
to which he responded by jumping in the air,
and it made no sense, really,

which was why it was funny and why he did this
in his performances of musical mirth --

but of course we think of Aaron Copeland and Appalachian Spring,
and the leaping Martha Graham Dancers with a great deal of hoopla

then there is the champagne tinted iris that has opened its bloom in my garden
harbinger of nuance and respect

amidst the gawking pansies and clamoring daffodils
the grace of essence suggests in transcendent arc the season's true song,
and the variegated wonders,
that is you in a single flower

Diego Santiago

Author notes
Victor Borge was a well known person of wit and ability that often did parodies of classical music at major concert halls. Generally he would appear to be just about ready to sit down to play the piano, when he would suddenly think of something funny to say. Almost never, did he actually complete a musical selection.

Walls to Keep

alone
within dank curtains
of stone
I hear sounds,

my self
contained,

vibrations
that I follow

corridors
that take me deep

tacit bindings
of separation
echoed

my heartbeat
breaching

I trace hands
reaching out

for what
I do not know

I daub memories of beasts
that I seek to eat and overcome

Diego Santiago

Seasons of Prime Time

Foot prints in mud and thawing glacial ice,
The distinct signatures of young hunters and stumbling guides, a deeper trail of women bearing the burden of unborn children
the tentative straggle of the elderly and the elfin hops of those finding flowers

At the mouth of a large cave
a pause of dread before the hollowed troglodytic breath:

The Other People, who had come before them --
who left scattered bones deplete of marrow,
smoked ceilings above the fire pits,
murals of sabre-tooth beasts and gigantic shaggy forms on walls,
in mystic ceremony of both hunting and haunting
an evoked power suspended in the empty space and
outlines of hands much larger then their own.

Word is passed back -- "not here, not here..."
first to the warriors
then to the priest
then to the women ---

"Camp outside and gather sticks."

Diego Santiago

Author notes
My poem uses the cave dweller and wanderer metaphor to liken the passage of winter and the coming of a spring, or the changing of any season, or the changing of anything.

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