Untitled by Gary Aro Ruble
Juan Carlos Vargas
Ubi Sunt
And
thus do we…by indirections find directions out
~ Hamlet (Act II, Scene i)
Thermal springs; cool surface; noontime
Pumping light steadily into the furnace of the shore.
Sudden waters shine like a semaphore
In the dark. Tracered sky; a green breeze;
A steam's bath; a sodden light climbs
The dull tinsel of the trees,
A watery sight: Summit of underbrush and twig
Awash in light's bits and pieces…
I lift above the roaring green on a hunchbacked
Squall, drift like rain in the bright drift-packed
Air, angled just so then to see a rough colonnade of trees
Glitter above the shore and a toucan
Toiling in. At a floating snail's pace,
The frazzled fronds and the grainy face
Of stone seem to wade out with me on the sea's
Thinning breath. I slip beneath two green-knit
Sheets, gull through a light hollow wave, on the far side
Of which, I lift upon my shoulders the bubbling tide,
A tiny Atlas surfacing among the minnows!
Noon's windy cloth, wave slope and a cloud-laddered sky:
A favorite afterlife beached in shrubs:
The white-indoor-of-cloud carrying over from hill to hill.
Green, the throw of waters, a quilt
Done in dissolving squares and the long swim home;
Gray, the boullework on the shore, the crisscrossed shade and air
Mingling in the sand: A black bird, a mosquito net,
And a white butterfly lost amid the distant darker shade.
Beach-fretted palm, a sandy palmy palette; a tiny
Leaf-boat whirlwinds past as a dead set
Wave spreads me out like a pocket
Knife. I come back to loosened
Earth, digging arm and shoulder blade
Deeper into day. Graybeards coming in. The furthermore of waves.
The water fabric extends out in tatters like an old Persian
Rug, the earth's southerly deeds, the wind's dispersions
Of lighter deeds tossed about like fluff
And lace and in the distance a generous overlay of white,
Scanty blue and greenest line. Still water quick as death, a set of sea
Through waves, as a lost season of cold water
Skirts past my rising knees. I stiffen a resolve,
Clip the midsummer's sun to my daytime stars, chart my course,
My body etching flesh a trail thick through the waters,
And waterside, like a leaf, I put on airs,
My breath falling down along each briny
edge, while out there two
Outstretched pelicans all but counterfeit
The whitecaps of the sea
Hovering momentarily over the memories of starlit
Lovers filing down to the figured sand
Walking to the ocean's rim, their extreme
Breathes to the shore attend
And whatever was uttered
Still sighs on the tips of the waves…
A maddening maritime skit, penned,
Penned, by a drunken Neptune's
Mental sleights-of-hand…
Closing summer's spent theatre
A falling curtain at a time as the day
And I walk away through trees,
Stirring branches and half-awakened
By the tossing seas.
Bio:
Juan Carlos Vargas is a U.S. citizen who was born and lives in Costa Rica. His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and magazines, including The Chicago Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Voices International, No Exit, Verse Daily, Ragged Raven (England), and The Caribbean Writer. He holds graduate degrees from Stanford (English) and Brown (Creative Writing) and an undergraduate degree from UCLA. Currently, he teaches American and British literature at the University of Costa Rica.
