EL CABALLERO ANDANTE AND THE UNFOLDING PAGE

 

EL CABALLERO ANDANTE AND THE UNFOLDING PAGE

            for Karen

 

Stay in bed with Karen

receiving her kisses

reading emails

 

Reading the paper

while morning light

comes from window

 

The sadnesses of parenting accompany the joy

 

*

Our exhausted planet

Our multiple contagions

I read carefully for preparing

short ribs in the Dutch Oven

bitter chocolate, espresso, chipotle

 

*

Things to do this morning

Mulch and spread top soil

Get a key made

Withdraw money from savings

 

*

 

Tu Fu, Sancho, La Triste Figura

 

*

 

Wake and wonder how

it all happened to the children

and the country at once

We knew something

was in the air, but

didn't know it from a short cut

2 am amid a choice of books

TuFu within an arm's length

walking the banks

of the Yangtze River

That small boat

Refugees in a jet plane

I put my arm out

my quilted blanket

reaching for water

 

*

 

In Chapter XIX of Quixote

the chapter where our Cabellero Andante

is excommunicated, Sancho

gives his amo a new name

Don Quixote de la triste figura

Our Cabellero smiles and nods

John Rutherford translates this image

Quixote of the sorry face.

Edith Grossman translates the sorrowful face

Cervantes' Quixote de la triste figura

remains monumental, a foundation

for all that sorrows, the sorrowful face

accepted and affirmed by don Quixote

as he follows Sancho and his donkey

on Rocinante, looking for a place

they can dismount, hungry and thirsty

as they are, before resting among the grasses.

 

Jim Bodeen

13-15 October 2020