a valentine for akumal

by ingrid wendt


Verde, que te quiero verde
— Federico García Lorca
 

Oh, how I love your ever-green jungle, everything blooming
Or bearing or ready to be born, sometimes all three at once
On the same delirious plants: your coconut palms, for instance,
Under ever-sashaying fronds, five or six clusters of fruits

And flowers in all stages of production, year-round. How much
I learn from them. And from your birds. I love their constant mating
Ballets. How do they keep at it all day? Every day? Waiting
For them to cease and desist would be like waiting for the sun

To eclipse the moon. Your cocoa brown doves do it
On the one bare branch in all that berry-filled tree next to my
Balcony, shamelessly. Oh, so much fertility! My eyes
Have died and gone to Heaven, and that’s not even to begin

Naming what’s in your Eden under the sea. Look, Valentine,
See? I’m blossoming, I’m bearing, even as I speak. Be mine.