Ecuador Poem

By CRALAN KELDER

Playa d’Oro
The canopy above ajerk with toucans
ajerk with toucan, and no,
you can’t eat them,
so sorry.

let’s draw an arbitrary line,
at something we’ll call reality
something we’ll call when we need it,
keep at a distance when we don’t

in the travel journal i thought that there was plenty of material,
plenty of poems.
I was mistaken it
turns out to be a bunch of lists.

back in these here united states
I don’t want to look back in regret, but i do feel fortunate

it’s the little things: being awake near dawn,
as it rears through a window
silent profound and blue,
and the first movement of birds their
voices quiet at first and then rising, raucous

riding a bike under fall trees
ok I admit it
maybe they aren’t so little,
these things.

 

Cralan Kelder is the author of Give Some Word. His work has recently appeared in Zen Monster, Poetry Salzberg Review, and VLAK, among other publications. Kelder currently edits the literary magazines Full Metal Poem and Retort. He lives in Amsterdam with the evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers and their children.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Ecuador Poem

Related Posts

Monrovia, Liberia at night

Electricity Comes in the Morning

MARVIN GARBEH DAVIS SR.
A sudden hum, a soft pulse through the walls, and the bulbs bloom again: white, merciful, blinding, as if mercy itself has switched on the lights. You can hear the city rejoice. Someone shouts, “Current don come!” Radios click on. Pots clatter. Even the roosters seem to crow out of turn. The sound of the generator fades, its duties relieved.

The Constancy of Ocean Sounds

JOHN T. HOWARD
Another morning in New Harbor arrives, this time with sun in place of cloud and fog. The waves, still audible, seem almost louder than yesterday. The dunting off in the near distance swallowed up by the constancy of ocean sounds. Tumult, clamor, crash.

art by jonathan ehrenberg

Two Poems by Erica Ehrenberg

ERICA EHRENBERG
Nearby, / women came out of the rubble / still pregnant years after / the children were conceived. / I kept you in, the women said, / because you were the pin / holding down the world