#MIDDLEBURY
Omens
Cecilia Llompart
The dead bird, color of a bruise,
and smaller than an eye
swollen shut,
is king among omens.
Who can blame the ants for feasting?
Let him cast the first crumb.
~
We once tended the oracles.
Now we rely on a photograph
a fingerprint
a hand we never saw
coming.
~
A man draws a chalk outline
first in his mind
around nothing
then around the body
of another man.
He does this without thinking.
~
What can I do about the white room I left
behind? What can I do about the great stones
I walk among now? What can I do
but sing.
Even a small cut can sing all day.
~
There are entire nights
I would take back.
Nostalgia is a thin moon,
disappearing
into a sky like cold,
unfeeling iron.
~
I dreamed
you were a drowned man, crown
of phosphorescent, seaweed in your hair,
water in your shoes. I woke up desperate
for air.
~
In another dream, I was a field
and you combed through me
searching for something
you only thought you had lost.
~
What have we left at the altar of sorrow?
What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?
About this poem
“I’ve always been fascinated by the archetype of the blind seer or soothsayer, and the fact that my first name means ‘blind,’ coupled with the vivid, quasi-prophetic dreams I have suffered from ever since I was a child, were natural entryways into this poem. These are turbulent times – with forces of light and dark pressing in on all sides – and I often think about how helpless we feel, not knowing who to turn to for truths. Written during a time when my own life felt tossed at sea, when I was learning to lean a closer ear to my own heart, this poem feels both burdened by seeing and cracked open by hope.” – Cecilia Llompart
About Cecilia Llompart
Cecilia Llompart is the author of “The Wingless” (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2014). She currently teaches freelance creative writing workshops and divides her time between the United States and France.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Cecilia Llompart. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
