BPR 50 | 2023
My beloved is the grandson
of Naranja, the spiritual teacher
whose sayings I never hear
in the dream, but his wife, bearer of wisdom’s
weight, a crone whose round, tan face
earth has freckled umber,
sits at the small pine
table. Its labors have warped it—
bearing meals, talk, elbows,
heads pondering sorrow.
She asks if I’m interested
in her or Naranja.
Both, I say.
My beloved, who also
sits at the table, spoons
thick, spicy soup, pumpkin, perhaps,
shaking out pepper and salt,
black and white pigments, swaths,
dots and lines, a sand painting
he will eat,
a hot communion.
I wake to remembering
naranja is Spanish for “orange,” which
the unconscious
made soup of. I say “the”
because clearly I’m not in charge.
Oranges are. They lit
the polished, deep green leaves,
the groves’ fragrant shadows
that beckoned girl-me,
who ate so much
juice, fire and sugar
the sun fed. Color tells:
black and white, the ground
salt and pepper—
oh, I know my Jung,
binaries, self and soul, crone
and beloved—but the ground
is the word
arising, the unwarranted love
the earth we are
burning gives
the blossoming
scent of oranges
I peel and eat over the sink.
The teacher is burning.