Saint Dancing
by Lorraine Caputo
Inside the market, between crowded stalls, a
band plays. Amongst the vendors dance women
in bright blue pollera skirts, high-crowned
hats banded with black ribbon, & men
with scarves wrapped around chests, hung with
baskets, jugs, toy llamas. Food, drink given
to them dancing by, towards the exit.
The beat & shrill off-notes of
the band follow behind, into the rain-
wetted streets. Weak sun pools in the
dents of tubas & French horns. &
so they honor their saint this day,
dancing through snarled traffic, through fume-bathed
streets, dancing, dancing through the clouded noon.
band plays. Amongst the vendors dance women
in bright blue pollera skirts, high-crowned
hats banded with black ribbon, & men
with scarves wrapped around chests, hung with
baskets, jugs, toy llamas. Food, drink given
to them dancing by, towards the exit.
The beat & shrill off-notes of
the band follow behind, into the rain-
wetted streets. Weak sun pools in the
dents of tubas & French horns. &
so they honor their saint this day,
dancing through snarled traffic, through fume-bathed
streets, dancing, dancing through the clouded noon.
Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator, and travel writer. Her works appear in over 150 journals in Canada, the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa; 12 chapbooks of poetry — including “Caribbean Nights,” “Notes from the Patagonia,” and “On Galápagos Shores”; and 18 anthologies. She has also authored a dozen travel guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada chose her verse as poem of the month. Caputo has done over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to the Patagonia. She travels through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.