Lorraine Caputo

A NEW PATAGONIAN MORN


Slow dawn
tints the clouds
orchid, gilds the
willows, the creamy
full moon sliding
over the reed-
bedded depths of a
dried lagoon, swans
& flamingos
long fled

& the wind, that wind
awakens, whipping
the trees, whirling
sere soil skyward
into the growing
light of this new
Patagonian morn






BURNT RAILS

(San Marcos, Texas)


In the early morning hours
    I hear the rumbles of the trains
        the horns
        the deep rumble of diesel engines
I feel their heaviness
    of their journeys
    of a time long past
        in most elsewhere

I feel the heaviness
    of a life left elsewhere
        the many years I spent there
        their heaviness …
        their heaviness …

An old part of my Self
    from younger days
        looks longingly into the distance
            those tracks wind into
I quit the streets
    to walk among the high weeds
        trash & hard, sharp stones
The winter-weakened desert sun
    burning off the rails
        & gravel beds

Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose poetry appears in over 250 journals on six continents, and 18 collections – including Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017), On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or https://latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.