Poems

VALLE DE OAXACA

for Roberto Donis

Trumpeters
from the Comandancia militar
in the last glare of day
are practising a fanfare:

their notes float off
buffeted by walls
into a shower of chromatics
that falls round the ears of the women at the washing trough:

a celebration? You might call it that
as it harmonises with the tones
that toll from Santo Domingo -
a celebration, but of what?

Oh it's a desultory enough affair
I know: perhaps little more
...