During Easter week, the streets
are decorated with arches
made from branches, green cascades
of coconut fronds and banana leaves,
along with blossoms from el corozo,
the vegetable ivory palm tree
that has pale-hearted nuts
I can carve
into tiny statuettes
of hummingbirds,
the wings just as smooth and white
as real elephant tusks.
Feathers, ribbons, and strands of colorful paper,
cut into all sorts of complicated, lacy shapes.
The street in front of our house looks like a toy store
imagined, and then brought to life by a magician.
On the ground, there are carpets of pictures
made by artists who work with sawdust—
red cedar, mahogany, yellow mora, black ebony,
and on top of those fragments of tumbled forest,
a rainbow of flower petals, wheat grains,
corn, beans, and other seeds, as if to praise
this generous earth
for a wealth
of delicious growth.
I stand outdoors
dazzled by brilliant designs,
especially the one that dangles right in front of my
astonished eyes, a golden pomegranate
instead of a natural, ruby-red fruit.
Has a clever artist coated this granada
with some sort of glittering metallic dust?
Is it real gold?
When I reach up to touch
the shimmering sculpture,
it cracks open, and a shower of paper
rains down—verses, poems, all written
by me, the ones I traded for candy!
Are my scraps of rhyme
really so valuable
that the bishop’s sisters
want to share them
with everyone?
Maybe all I’ll ever need
for the rest of my life
is this thunderous comfort,
my own wild storm
of explosive
poetry!