Diaspora Sonnet 60, and: Diaspora Sonnet 61, and: Diaspora Sonnet 62, and: Pantoum Beginning And Ending With a Big Sky

Abstract

Diaspora Sonnet 60, and: Diaspora Sonnet 61, and: Diaspora Sonnet 62, and: Pantoum Beginning And Ending With a Big Sky Oliver De La Paz (bio) Keywords poetry, Oliver De La Paz, paternal relationships, sonnet sequence, nature, art DIASPORA SONNET 60 My father kept his guns beneathhis bed because he thought that every stranger at the door was uniformed.Some strong-armed soldier who’d come for him to “tease out” where my uncles hid.And though we’re countries, years away from there he worries still. Imaginesevery knock’s the hammer’s kinetic charge. Even in the fields of eastern Oregon,pheasant screech and gulp of sage grouse, all of it sounds transformed into boots,loud above the crack of the gun, its declaration. Its insistence on issuingits name in ever-diminishing echoes. [End Page 49] DIASPORA SONNET 61 To strive for the body’s permanence isto strive for perpetual failure. There are rivers which always yearn to stretchtheir arms into the maw of another river and in so meeting, make another body.My father is never happy staying in one place. I say he is displacedwhich sounds like another location just beyond reach. He is a notion seekinganother source and yet he is aging and his body yearns to meld intosomething it will never become. Say, American, or local. Meanwhile,we together stare in our stasis at the sea. [End Page 50] DIASPORA SONNET 62 Someone explained the blueswas a suffering from political despair. And yet it is hard to fathom artfrom the unshielded body. Handfuls of rice tossed into the air. Arc of the grainsdrag their parabolas across the sky. Father wondered at this ritual, the waste a typeof savagery. Is this a celebration or toil? He could never tell. And whether he singsa type of blue note as he drives from one job to the next, it is hard to discern the artcoming from the whistle passing between his lips. Whether that friction and the octavesmade so sharply will ease that ache. [End Page 51] PANTOUM BEGINNING AND ENDING WITH A BIG SKY Where the horizon meets the plains, a sharp linecuts into my sight. Bursts of scrub and spare pineemerge from the earth like little prayers. Unheardbreaths catch in scraps of wind. Here we are cut into my sight. Bursts of scrub and spare pinehold us in the frame and place us closer to home.Breaths catch in scraps of wind. Here we are,monuments aligned with a certain perspective. Hold us in the frame and place us closer to homeif we can find a home. Remember where we stand,monuments aligned with a certain perspective—perhaps from the side. Perhaps just disappearing. If we can find a home, remember where we standso we can return to it. Trace our steps backwards,perhaps from the side. Perhaps just disappearingin the rearview. My father’s arm on my headrest, so he can return to it. Trace his steps backwards—back from his paces at work. Back from the roadin the rearview. My father’s arm on my headrestas he puts the car in reverse. As he watches the mirror. Back from his paces at work and back from the roadI think he dreams of change. Dreams of meas he puts the car in reverse and as he watches the mirror.Imagines who I’d become or of other possibilities. [End Page 52] I think he dreams of change, of medriving out of this desert. Setting fire to the road,imagines who I’d become or of other possibilitiesthat are, maybe, just within reach off the interstate. I’d drive out of this desert and set fire to the road,I’d emerge from the earth like a prayer, unheard.I’d take the offramp and ease off the interstate.I’d see where the horizon and the plains form a sharp line. [End Page 53] Oliver De La Paz oliver de la paz is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the...