Photography © Luis Lázaro Tijerina

 

Cap Diamant, MARCH 26, 2021

I stood on Cap Diamant looking out,
Storm clouds on the gray Atlantic horizon,
The winds slapping my face, but I did not care,
In these times, I am even indifferent to myself,
Wet grass wet beneath my feet,
The snow fades fast along the Citadelle Wall,
The squalls beat down against the port
of Lower Town,
Frontenac hotel windows glistening with rain,
La Promenade des Governeurs slick with puddles,
Beware of the slip that can take you down
into the abyss,
But is that not what you have always been
waiting for— the slugs, seaweed, that primal end,
beneath the array of sun and clouds,
Where you hear the loud carriage horse,
With hoofbeats and whip—that almost fatal snap,
Before you chance to take that walk—
The storm threating to come like loud trumpets,
among the rolling and desolate hills,
Where the multitudes have died.

It is still daylight, the Martello Towers keep their watch,
on the old enemy across the border,
Trees, scrubs, glazes of snow bend into grief,
Invisible to those who died here,
I, a straggler, here among the ghosts of those,
Who perished on this monumental Plaines,
Broken like the brown grass,
Not yet ready to come to life with Springtime,
The silence and then the wind picks-up,
And I, like others, vanish into ashes along horizons,
The dark whirlwind takes our breath away,
A clumsy ride into the infinite universe,
Stars break into our private passageways,
That testament of hearsay.

 

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Vermont.