Natur Mort by Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro
Allow me to compose myself: I’m the inkling of an opera.
Natur Mort
by Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro
after Amalia Caputo The night’s gown drags across the sky. Allow me to compose myself: I’m the inkling of an opera. Like smoke, an ice queen rises from her throne, Drunk off the tears she drank from her chalice. Once, on a date, a man gave you a trumpet of dead flowers, Certain that your love would be beautiful, Even in the end. Inside of every loneliness is an hourglass That can only be cured by seawater. (The moon’s no comfort without her orchestra.) In hopes of becoming a star, an artist gambles his teeth. Out or outside of time, the audience holds their breath — The silence, velvet-smooth.
(The moon’s no comfort without her orchestra.) -- I love asides like this.
Bound in a human world that focuses the bulk of its powers toward concrete/asphalt structures and technological and artistic simulacrums derivative at best, this poem serves as refreshing… deftly sculpting the complex simplicity of indivisible nature, particularly of the aura of night, into a classical fashion of beauty. While many people spend their late night hours attending raucous concerts or mind/body-numbing clubs and bars, this poem attends to an experience of an infinitely expansive nighttime silence; or, quite possibly, a spiritual enhancement of the mind and body comparable to a play by Aeschylus. A lovely poem!