Poetry Thursday, Hispanic Heritage Month

This Moment / Right Now
 ~Roberto Carlos Garcia
                                 for Monica Hand

there’s a whispered prayer blowing
the crumbs of a season’s harvest
                 off a girl’s plate

& a roar breaks from her insides,
the roar a lioness
                 a beast that knows

& a man kneels somewhere
cupping his tears
                 for the loneliness he feels

though he’s surrounded by the world,
& a finch in a tree singing
                 for a lover as the buds on its branch

pop into leaves that will flourish
& welcome the green grasses,
                 Right now    a boy is wondering

if people can really dodge bullets
& is he one of them & somewhere nobody bothers
                 to ask, they simply wait

Wind spins across the landscape
they say God is twirling his fingers—

The heartbroken hook new bodies,
night after night, drink after drink

& I dance—my feet mashing grapes
for wine & I sing mockingly—
                 what is life / what is life

Copyright © 2017 Roberto Carlos Garcia. Used with permission of the author.