Satellite Beach Sunshower days foretelling magical nights. Moonbow risings spray of mendicant waves. Heaven’s inner gates thrust wide open by beams of liquid light. Creatures with supefluous bodies finding stress relief in seclusion and separation. The problem of death solved in the peaceful coexistence of body and soul. All come to Satellite Beach. Others too, with numerous names, infinite charmed form, diaphanous beings. Opaque beings, human and higher. Lower winged figures playing framed drums. Hellish sorcerers with infuriated mouths. Immortal birds, red dragons, demigods. All come to Satellite Beach. All forget their fate refuse resistance against nature’s works. On that night when day is sunshower at Satellite Beach.
Uirapuru, Amazon Wren The bird that is not a bird sings the songs that a bird cannot The bird that is not a bird sings with great clarity and timbre The bird that is not a bird sings with pace of power and lyrical delicacy The bird that is not a bird sings with delirious harmonies whistling litanies intoxicating trills dazzling chirps then, a pointed silent refrain. The bird that is not a bird hushes the rainforest when the premature spring cascades The wren of all pubs sings of serenity how he discovered giant canopies veiling solar rays How he learned through trial and error to calm his mind with song The king of love has mastered the tupian tongue, twitters with ease of breath: “Casa Suja, Chão Sujo” Kings and queens seek a sprig of his feathers, one fragment of his nest, his wishboned relics to keep locked in chests of drawers The musician wren warbles legendary cantigas of luminous joy that awaken stunned hearts and vagrant snakes on treetops Solitary bird, with low belly, perches faithfully on evanescent branches of colossal andiroba The soloist finds comfort in its own lifted chest evokes symphones with one breath recites poems of tonal purity: Uirapuru Solo, Maverick, Op. 26. Serenader of the lower Amazon gives indelible vanilla scents to the cumaru makes the cupuaçu fruit less pungent . The bird that is not a bird sings because disquiet hearts doubt all notions of everlasting happiness Because mortals do not know how to claim their own how to create permanence
The Butterfly Lovers’ Erhu Concerto They appeared from A lacrimoso cocoon In a subway cloister rushing hours on the eight street line A Penoso adagio Performed by A sphinx man Unseeing face But playing as multi-armed asura, the demigods a strange stringed- long neck violin. Like when someone chooses With a high note To end the edges of time. A fallen traveller transformed into an entranced tune As the coins cascaded On the musician’s instrument case All those who entered the train Could see a pair of Yellow River butterflies flying over the dark hours In fast frenetic cadence In such natural triumph
Rain’s Spiritual Frame-Drum, Daf for my Sufi Master Safer Efendi Thrashing On the glass the rain discovers a surprising tempo of calm On the edge On the center Of the window The rain strikes its finger tips loud and sharp The rain Soft and obtuse Strikes its finger tips On the glass window Daf-like translucent Goat skin Membrane The large frame-drum A slippery surface As happiness All around The rain rhythm Interspaced with sounds of shimmering rings inside a spiritual framed-drum striking its rain finger tips loud and sharp Soft and pervasive Against the glass The intermittent mute flashing Lights from portable Thunders afar secluded, restrained when the rain ceases to be rain Ah! to be just a heart That can’t take Any form or shape Quiet, solid, bare Alone Without the rain Inside which I came to see a happiness Always there.
Jesus Bird Wattled Jaçanã, Jesus bird Walks on the wetlands. The solitaire jaçanã with undivided attention Walks over, tiptoeing with long toes the aquatic weeds, floating camalotes of water Hyacinths Jesus bird Walks on the Victoria regia, the giant round carpet avocado green leaves to scent the white fruity lilies fragrance? Jesus bird Walks the way the moonlight Walks on the bayous, Pantanal ol’en sea.
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Roseangelina Baptista is a Brazilian-American poet based in Central Florida. A medical doctor of Portuguese ancestry, she opted for a literary path instead.
As a self-translator she explores the linguistic perspective of bilingualism as a literary phenomenon. Her poems appear in The Joao Roque Literary Journal, Adelaide Literary Award Anthology, IV Antologia de Poetas Lusofonos na Diaspora. As a member of the Space Coast Writers’ Guild Poetry Committee, she has launched a series of initiatives to promote local poetry. Her interests also include Suminagashi paper marbling, meditation, and Sumi-e paintings.
