Where Only He Could Go (Two new poems)

This is probably an unfinished draft--It's a poem for "fun" but I've been struggling with it all week. It is full of hidden rhymes which I've been trying to refine. I have added an image showing the rhymes. You can click on it to see it larger. It is part of my current manuscript, Counting Fingers, Smelting Light. If you are interested, try this, before you look at the image showing the rhymes, see how many you can find--some are obvious, others less so. There is a small new haiku at the very bottom. I have written about twenty other new poems I haven't had time to post.

Where Only He Could Go
How Uncle Jake tells Stories of Tristan to Geraldine, February 14, 1962[?]

Across the Santiago rooftops, he'd dance and run,
full of monkey antics, shenanigans, and fun.
You would have laughed to see him scamper high
Up in the trees, sun lighting his hair in a halo of cinnamon,
though he certainly was no angel. He chased the birds
to make them fly, to hear the whirr of wings and watch them
screeching from all the branches, lift in unison into the sky,
probably yelling curses. And him so pleased
and grinning. Yah, cinnamon, like your candy hearts.
A cinnamon capuchin was what he was. In spite
of his happy games and frolics, he looked so sad
I named him Tristan, and he was bad. He ran amuck.
He'd duck into an open door and steal a banana, guava
or some Senora's pie (a Senora's a lady, Gerry)
and oh, the hollering and fists upraised, like so!
He was always in a jam. Every day and more
I had to pay for that monkey's spunk and thievery.
He filled my bunk with stolen coins and loot. Bought
me a drink or two, I must admit. Even a drunk. Shhh,
I didn't say that, Gerry, don't tell on me. Good girl.
But he spilled a few as well. He was nimble, free,
and wild. And especially sweet when he wrapped his arms
around my feet and hugged and kissed me
with smacking sounds. He liked to ham things up.
And cute. You'd think he invented cute, the clown.
You would have loved him, child. He'd catch a ball
and sometimes fetch it like a dog maybe once
or twice, but then hide the ball, the wretch
in the top of a tree where only he could go.
No making nice would make him change his mind
and bring it down. He put my hat in the treetops too,
and worse, the passport I needed to come home.
I had to learn to climb again and was never as good
at trees as you.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
In memory of Grim, and for my parents
(note: read other version and compare! The one with the rhymes marked)
090213-2312-4d; 090212-2009-3a; 090211-3201-2d; 090210-2220-1b; 090210 1st

At Winterfest

The hawk ice sculpture,
look! Sun and rain have melted
it into a dove. Mary Stebbins Taitt