If you had wings

If you had wings, what would you do with them?

I would fly out to the ice edge and see who passes there, what the hooded mergansers fish.
I would watch snow melt in the sea.
I would fly to the hilltop and watch the sun rise over all 72 islands in the Baie des Isles.
The eagle and I would meet in an updraft and I would stare him down:
         my current, my space; I'm here: don't bother me now.
         Go find your own air.
That settled, I would carry on.

Notes
This poem, if it is a poem (perhaps it is a draft for a poem), emerged out of an exercise that I gave a writing class a couple of years ago; it is based on a poem entitled "Wings" by Susan Stewart. One of my favourite poems--up there with Neruda's Estravagario and his Book of Questions, Stewart's poem is an interview based upon the question, "if you could have wings would you want them?"  I changed the question slightly, and then, of course, had to try to answer it myself.

(For some English translations of some of Neruda's poems see http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Neruda.htm)

Pinched (ex voto to Frida)

 

Upon
being told her
right leg would have to be
amputated, Frida Kahlo
sat up

shouted,
"feet, why do I
need you? If I paint wings, 
I can fly." Thus, every loss lifts
her up.

Not so,
you. Heartsick, your
humerus fractured, you
rage against the night, suffer her
wild love. 

Notes
An ex voto is a devotion, an offering to a saint or local god, given in gratitude for healing or deliverance from adversity, or because a sufferer seeks grace.  (Ex voto is a shorted version of the Latin phrase, ex voto suscepto, "meaning "from the vow made.") Some ex votos consist of tiny stamped tin charms in the form of an arm or a leg or a heart--indicating the body part or attribute to be or that has been healed.  Other offerings might include small paintings with an illustration of the affliction, and a legend explaining what has  happened. In Mexico, such ex votos are often painted on small crudely cut out rectangles of tin. Frida Kahlo both collected and painted works that drew upon this vernacular tradition.  Here, Frida is the saint to whom I make this offering for a friend in agony.  Can she help? I am not sure...

Cinquains, again.

Photos were taken in Mexico. Of course. And this entry blogged from a laundromat in Canoe Cove, on Vancouver Island.