TeresaPeipins

Priorat, Spain

I am replacing
the crosses of childhood
the purple hill of the cemetery,
green growing over
a junkyard.

Here I lead
a biblical life-
grapevines scuplted
into hillsides,
olives shimmer silver green,
and even the smallest almond tree,
bends, with abundance.

The Indian creek
turns Mediterranean, all blue,
all calm.

This village balances
on rock, on its paleolithic hill,
Home lies within Roman walls.

Recognition
On Visiting Latvia

We descended from the Artic,
shrouded in white
ice creaking with each step.
I return
to black castle ruins,
a matriarchy
with its pantheon of Gods –
fate,thunder,
the sun –a woman then,
destroyed.

Spires with roosters
Show Peter´s three time betrayal.
My heart darkens
through war after war

At the bus stop
We sit on the ruins
Of a synagogue
set on fire during sabbath prayer
I died there too.

Old women
swollen feet
strapped into shoes
push together.
Smells of age,
unwashed bodies, prevail.
Too heavy to budge,
a potato sack
serves for meal after meal.

Home from the market
passing shops of used clothing,
shadows of unseen birch
the scent of the sea,
24 hour vodka kiosks.

THAT LIFE

I.
No strangers appear in that life
and we are the crazy Russians
on the hill,
enough to deliver us
from the rural town-
gas station, hotel, store in pairs.
Here in safety
golden fruit,
perfectly formed,
droops in bounty.
Blossoms brush my window,
daylight hypnotizes a hawk
hiding in the branches.
Apple trees provide
pink blush, green, all flavors of red.
And goldfish last
slumbering through long winters
in the pond,
where today
my uncle reflects sunlight,
imagining his cold gray sea.

II.
The children of angels now,
my mother wears a dark blue suit,
instead of apron and headscarf.
We fly over the mountaintops of Crete
and lunch on city walkways
My father reappears as general
and still brings shivers.

III.
There on the hill we tangoed
to the record player
after clearing fields of rocks.

Box of Surprises

Moth repellent, garden sweat, an airless sewing room fill my nostrils. Her house. I
immediately close the box from my aunt, arriving from America. It remains at the back of a
shelf until the coldest winter in 20 years. I retrieve the afghan, marroon and white, the
colors of the Latvian flag with its story of soldier´s blood leaking onto a white cloth.
Treasures of another age, knitted slippers, floppy mittens, a reminder of the requirements
of the Latvian trousseau, 100 pairs of mittens to last a family a lifetime. I line these objects
up in my Barcelona flat.