Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 180 journals on six continents; and 12 chapbooks of poetry – including Caribbean Nights (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017) and On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to the Patagonia. She travels through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels at: www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer.
MISSION
Several hours
before the dawn
men gather
on the corner below
silent, leaning against
worn crafted stone
What is their
mission, their hope
in this darkness,
beneath a sky
of sparse clouds & stars,
of waning moon
& within a moment’s
glance away
they disappear
SIX A.M.
Dawn lightens
the eastern horizon
The west is still deep indigo
with stars peering from behind
night-gathered clouds
Pigeon chicks awaken chirping
on a window ledge of the
chapel across the street
Silent persons shuffle across
the empty square
Down the calle below my window
the murmur of a man’s voice
the clear laughter of his woman
A cock’s clarion call cuts
ki-ki-rí ki-ki-rí
through the chill moist twilight
Those church bells ring
in a trio of trios
Then the measured
toll of this
six-o’clock hour
Cooing doves amass on that plaza
pecking for yesterday’s seeds
between worn flagstones
The sky brightens grey-blue
outside my room
The sounds of traffic the calls of vendors
begin to weave through
this morning
SAINT FRANCIS SQUARE
For five hundred years
stones laid by Catunya
in a Devil’s bet
have paved that plaza
trodden by thousands day
after century
Yet the grass & alpine
herbs of miniature leaf
green the cracks between
the grey slabs
