Reading Poems at the Parque de Cóndor in Otalvo,
     For Fermín H. Sandoval

Reading poems in an amphitheater on a mountaintop overlooking volcanoes with guitars, violins, eagles, hawks, & condors circling the audience, I feel a cobalt wind whipping clouds shaped like Caritas through my hair. Wind with the waist of a tango dancer relaxing one palm upon my right shoulder, the other against my left hip. The wind, toucan blue, body of granite, plus lips of brutal sunshine scrubbing the scalloped steps of the crowded amphitheater. Poems fly from Steve, Silvia, Gina, Juan, Rodrigo, Aníbal, & me. Volcanic ashes fall from guitars & violins. Eagle drifts like a single ash above the burning amphitheater, floats higher & higher until against a single cloud made of linen it appears as a speck of pepper before entering the smoky cloud like a poem entering heaven. Fermín conducts this sermon on an Andes mountaintop, opening his arms to the sky & spreading his wings like some great black bird of prayer. Amen.    


Driving to Babahoyo, Ecuador
     For Gina E. López

One black cow & clouds like smoky ponchos
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