August 2022
Bio Note: I have a passion for languages and have taught Spanish at Western Michigan University. For the past several years, I have been studying Mandarin and Chinese Ink Brush painting. My latest poetry collection, The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019), won the Silver Nautilus Book Award; Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award.
Under the Crescent Moon
The violonist has grown wings, the donkey is flying. The bride and groom listen all night-long to the blue notes cascading over the red-tiled roof. They hear a secret tune, each from a different slice of the moon. He takes off his Top hat, unties his black knot, hums to the opalescence marking the beginning of his dance. Dovelike, she lies in embroidered sheets, her ruffled dress rests on a chair like discarded wings. She knows her waist will swell by the full moon, dreams of its dark side where Chagall is hiding.
Originally published in Sulphur River Literary Review
Waiting in a Field of Melted Honey
I am waiting in a field of melted honey, hiding behind a blue tree that is not really a tree, a root Vincent chose to paint as a tree, you know, the painting where roots are the size of trees, gnarled trees with severed limbs, sterile against the golden field swaying, the tall grass bending, and of course no one can tell, but l feel the wind too, swelling my blue-flowered dress, you won’t see none of it, for I am behind the huge roots that look like trees and you can only feel the wind in the brush strokes. You will mistake my dress bulging on the side for a knot as if I were a distortion of the oversized joints, leaning against the bark as if against one of his fingers, my space so restricted I can barely move.
The master knows I am waiting for him, eyes filled with the beauty pouring from his vision. I know he will take these roots and me with them, trees growing into rising clouds at nightfall, and he will show me the city lights everything around us becoming waves of light. When he remembers me, the tip of his brush releasing me, I will tell him how hot it was behind the root that was like a tree, how the bright rays made me dizzy. He will take me into his brush, cool me down with linseed oil and in another field show me the evening sky. I come to life again, but no one knows I'm here, the gold of my hair, the blue of my dress broken into lines, narrow paths of color spiraling among the stars on a warm blue night, the moon and the sun becoming one and I and him, the field and the sky circling endlessly. I feel the ripples of the wind, the ocean's foam, my dress flows domelike, its flowers brighter and brighter, I am everywhere, hear our voices and you now understand what lies in each swirl, your life, mine, his, together in the dance of the stars.
Originally published in Puerto del Sol
©2022 Hedy Habra
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL