The Envoy #107 – The official newsletter of the CCLA – Canada Cuba Literary All

THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the

Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693

February 2021 Issue 107 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.org

photo taken by Ann Di Nardo and edited by Jorge Alberto

FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A Word About Love On Valentine’s Day Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias Author, poet, editor, reviewer CCLA Cuban President The Envoy assistant editor

A few years ago, the CCLA official magazine, The Ambassador, volume 09, was dedicated to love. I quote CCLA founding President, Richard Grove, “Maybe love is too complicated to know if it is totally unselfish with a splash of friendship and a dash of lust with an overtone of envy and infatuation just to make it complicated. Can any single label fit the love you are feeling or expressing?” The mag´s editors then, Beeman, Roy and Velázquez, summarized, “For most, love is at once a natural and celestial force: while it drives us along wilderness trails, it also leads us by cathedrals that rise to infinity…”

Love, according to Random House Webster´s, digital version, derives from Latin liber (to be pleasing), and has the following entries, among others: “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person, esp. when based on sexual attraction; a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection; (cap.) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid; affectionate concern for the well-being of others: love of one's neighbor; the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.” Whatever definition we assume there is no doubt as to the strong, magical undercurrents charting the course of this feeling, either deeply rooted in the self, surfacing to revel in the loved one´s reciprocation, or found in a higher manifestation that needs no explaining. Buscaglia, for example, speaks of “degrees of love” and says, “Love offers itself as a continual feast to be nourished upon.” (Leo Felice Buscaglia. Love. Ballantine Books. U.S.A. 1972) Because that is what love is, the ongoing flame of celebration of what others make us feel and what they feel in return. I cannot think of a more passionate example of love expressed by one of the topmost figures of poetry in Cuba, Carilda Oliver (guest poet in The Ambassador 09):

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Your desire is a sentient thistle, a fragrant sword that pierces the whole moment of my sadness and pinions me with its inopportune ardour.

Because of your desire, captive squall, I travel from restless to tepid; because of your pestering desire in the mind, I fail in my unequivocal heart.

Because of your desire, pure blaze, I seem detained in madness and overthrow myself in stubborn rebellions.

And with fevers quieted, if I see you, like a tempest I flash lightening to learn that in flesh I live…

(Poem “Tu deseo es un cardo sensitivo” / “Your Desire is a Sentient Thistle” taken from The Ambassador 09. Translation into English by Velázquez, mag´s Editor-in-chief, here slightly edited by Lisa Makarchuk)

See mighty desire conquering the poet, making her “suffer” from “love madness.”

See how that love fever consumes her, makes her collapse only to infuse her – and arouse her sensuality – with the wondrous realization of how alive such experience makes her feel, how her flesh vibrates in recognition of that mutuality of desire.

Another beautiful ode to love is Elizabeth Barrett Browning´s “How Do I Love Thee?”: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Shorn by the tyranny of space, I limit myself by including only one poem by each poet in the following: From Elana Wolff, this short, evocative, touching claim of love: Fill me Stray beauty, clawed up by the sun in the sharp, artful way of the toe of a bird: Find me here and raise me up; I ache to lift and soar.

My body is heavy and weak.

There was a time I was so beautiful you didn’t know how to fill me.

John B. Lee´s gift is a piece that reaches a crest where an illumination of spirituality communes with the physical element. One complements the other, eroticism handled with artistry. Read his “I Wake to Breathe Your Beauty In”: I wake to breathe your beauty in your soft pink sex mummed like a secret-keeper’s mouth the stone imprisoned by its fall could no more hang upon the wind that I hold back this love your shape procures a note so faintly played upon the felts it leaves no mark like a dustless butler’s glove and I with sad melodies unsung

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

with wordless names and voiceless calling dream the mild narcotic of your gently moving breast.

A master of place and eroticism embroidered into one tender poem is James Deahl. The poet admires the magnificent view yet finds shelter in the memory of the woman he loves, blending both experiences:

An Autumn Alba

for Hilda

Waking in the stillness before dawn a late moon over pastures white with frost Lake Mactaquac in mist two hundred feet below.

Striking the tent alone I remember the moist warmth of your flesh and your voice thick with early morning loving saying ―Now.

A Cuban voice writing love poems and about love is Ernesto Galbán. A published and awarded poet, Galbán is a fan of rhyme (not considered in the translation) who explores themes of life with fluent wording. Here, his piece:

About an Ancient Theme What is love? – I ask you – and you fall quiet, suddenly I invent myself a smile, it’s a fright, I know, ashes too because it’s stripped with a puff of wind It’s an essence in which trust nests, or supplication in one’s core, it has a weird colour, prairie, abyss, autumnal rapture, life, hope.

It may turn indifferent,

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

alive it is when it gently grows, it’s always mixing with poetry, with that absence, stars or cloud that quietly appears and then rises becoming sky, universe.

(Taken from Bridges Series Book II, “Concave Mirrors / Espejos Cóncavos”. Translation into English by Velázquez, Editor) Simple words written with a heartfelt tone is what we welcome in Jorge Pérez´s (CCLA Ambassador and The Envoy editor-in-chief) love poem to his wife, Michelle:

A Beautiful Red Rose For My Beloved Throughout my long life, I have felt loneliness and oblivion, sometimes I’ve looked at the sky other times at the ground.

In twenty-two years of memory I can’t remember if between earth and sky among the aromas I breathe in now I have wanted to find flowers, butterflies, more love and more roses.

But before they wither, my love and the roses, I won´t forget my wife who loves daisies and needs my roses.

(Taken from Bridges Series Book IV, “Where the Heart Lies / Donde late el corazón”. Translation into English by the author)

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

And of course, back to Richard Grove´s “simple love poem,” as he called it, written to his wife in a moment of need. Simplicity and compactness show the poet´s fondness and nostalgia for his beloved one:

Missing You You away on business Me lying in bed alone Your side, pillow cold My side, warm but wanting The best way to close my Words About is with excerpts from the Holy Bible. I picked these for their especially lyrical‐sensual language: (“Song of Songs”): (From Song 1): “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts…”

(From Song 2): “My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies.

Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills…”

(From Song 5): “My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night… I have taken off my robe— must I put it on again? I have washed my feet— must I soil them again? My beloved thrust his hand through the latch‐opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the bolt.

I opened for my beloved…” (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song...Songs) Life and love nourish each other. We are connected to them when we are born and constantly reconnect them as we grow. They mutually reward each other, make each one worth experiencing. We embrace them as we go through the act of being, seeking a warmth impossible to find outside them. Thus, my message: Live and love. Love heals, love saves. Let´s be ever in love. Always remember: “If I speak in the tongues [1] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, [2] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.” (http://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/1COR+13.html) Enjoy the poems and poets who have honoured us with their pieces in this Envoy 107.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

by James Deahl Plainsong: Our Love Love is a cord woven out of life, And dyed in the red of the living heart — Isabella Valancy Crawford When we embrace our bodies quickened with passion with unbearable need we possess all time in one pure instant.

When we sit quietly in the same room reading or listening to Stan Getz that moment holds all time.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

When we sleep our bodies lightly touching as first light enters our bedroom on autumn’s wings we embrace all time.

Time exists by our love like the crocus opening to the sun’s touch a single breath that abides as long as love.

NOTE: The two lines from Crawford are from her poem “The Camp of Souls”.

See: Garvin, J.W., ed. The Collected Poems of Isabella Valancy Crawford.

Toronto: William Briggs, 1905, pages 52 – 55. Print.

Norma At Belfast Harbor Belfast, Maine Penobscot Bay on the edge of spring.

Belfast, Bucksport, Robert Lowell’s Castine under a stark, blue sky.

The lassitude of late afternoon.

My wife sits by the docks.

Once a bustling herring and mackerel fishery, little happens these days but tourists.

The economy will not relent.

She wears a vivid red sweater.

Behind her head, a small fishing boat enters Belfast Harbor.

I have never seen her more beautiful.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

photo taken by Ann Di Nardo and edited by Jorge Alberto

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Norma West Linder Autumn of 2011 with James After five years alone it’s good to be a we and us rather than I and me.

In that dark hour before the dawn his exhaled breath falls lightly on my face his gentle snore is music to my ears.

October sunshine sprays its radiance into our room wraps us in golden light — an ever-expanding gateway to a new day.

For James, with Love I thought myself content to live alone until you came along — a stalwart knight slaying, with your keen sword of winning words, the dragon of loneliness I thought with loyal Rocky by my side The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

(my little white Shih Tzu) I’d face the future unafraid have need of nothing more than my close circle of fellow writers and friends I felt the silent company of books would see me through I’d lose myself in tomes of others’ lives I didn’t know the joy of days and nights with you Poet of mine, your words your eyes of azure blue your strength, your wisdom and a heart that’s true have re-arranged my world and made it shine yes, made it shine like new

Gail M. Murray Ardgowan In soft morning light our bodies reach out For the first time in four months I am in your bed How did I get here your place, your space, your bed?

Am I in your heart?

Moments ago we were holding hands in Café Pleiades The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

looking for romance, in frigid January you chose a French café.

Our talk about relationships.

“It’s the hardest thing to do, share a home with someone.

Be together and be apart.”

You define us as a relationship “With dating it is a series of separate incidents, with a relationship, there is a thread.”

I like the image.

Later, sipping tea on my sofa you say, “My son isn’t home tonight; gone to his girlfriend’s.

We could go to my place.”

No hesitation. I pack an overnight bag.

It’s like we’re adolescents setting off on an adventure.

I want to know you.

As you lead me on a tour of your life now Another life – a family life – emerges Children and grandchildren smile from portraits cherished babies, tiny tots, teens going to prom.

The man of intellect designs, renovates I can’t believe the vast library, all the bookshelves Your huge bedroom all creams, soft cushions and marble showers dominated by a king sized bed Will we get lost in its immensity or find ourselves?

For me it’s like vacationing, a four star resort Perhaps I am pretending You have lived another life here with a woman you loved.

Now widowed.

Now I am here.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Last night surrounded by your past We shared this present passion.

Morning love, so different Quiet, gentle, languid akin to the afterglow.

Spooning in my love’s arms tender, sweet.

Night time love heated, urgent building bespeaks its own sweetness.

You like the poem I create for you “A romantic side is not too common in a woman.

Men need it.”

You reveal yourself I know you a little more Your hardship, joy and pain I hope you invite me home again.

Dichotomy My body aches for you before you loneliness now empty without you.

Come, take me in your arms Fill me There is space in my heart in my bed The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

in my life It begs filling.

My too full heart sees you in my dreams, waking life in messages on my answering machine emails, epistles of memory. in your love letters, pure and passionate Papyrus cards selected, written with care “You comfort and excite.”

Teneri baci mattutini sweet morning kisses tenderness skin on skin holding, enfolding.

Come, engulf me..

With you, I am full Without you, it is all yearning.

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

photo taken by Ann Di Nardo and edited by Jorge Alberto

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

LET MORNING NEVER COME

by Merle Amodeo

what bliss to wake beside you your arms entwined in mine my lips still moist from yours my ears attuned to your heartbeat like Juliet, I fear the lark’s song and softly hum to cover his tune if I knew a conjuring trick I’d seal your lids to hide the garish sun that will divide us bolt the doors to keep intruders out silence the voices calling us to day hold you forever in our hideaway

Full Mapping of You

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

You´re gone just seconds and I survive clinging to your scent on the sheets. The mild indentation of your absence has left behind an insinuation of skin lines. I fumble across the web of my memory trying to unscramble The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

signs that´ll lead me again to your grace which I know you´ll cascade upon me when you return so my bed is restored with the full mapping of you.

The Gift of You These gifts that last. Norma West Linder Down the roads of your body. Pablo Neruda I have you, the light to guide me in my last hour – if I can walk or you will carry me gently hand me over to the arms of nothingness wave sad good-bye remember me in moments of happiness, perhaps and certainly in moments of affliction, I hope.

Meeting you was a stroke of luck I have you now and celebrate our aged maps, the landmarks I treasure in your form accessible knolls I climbed shallow dips I treaded inviting slopes down your geography.

I have you now I have the miracle that is the gift of you in my life.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Sleight of Lips

Baring me. Cornelia Hoogland

There’s magic in your suggestive words they cross the few inches separating your warm skin from my alert flesh.

They bare me cover more and more inches melt divinely into groans and whispers no one but us can hear, or translate.

Sleight of lips, avalanche of love…

SHORT STORY SECTION White Lilies (Continued)

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias PART 3 (ending) Durrel did not lose time meditating his reply. “Would you stay in the house with me in it? Would you not kill me? Would you tell me what you need…?”

She blinked, approached him and took his shaking hands. Their first physical contact, as sacred, defining and promising as their silence. “Oh, is that a proposition? Are you aware of what you are about to tread into? The two of us here…

Your life out there…”

Durrel waived her concerns aside, “I´ve had no life lately out there. I told the broker that if the house “welcomed” me I would buy it. Well, it is more than just

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

the house, Lily, it is you and a kind of future I don´t quite fully take in now. However, as long as that future holds you, and I can take you in and you take me in; as long as you welcome me...” He stalled, his gaze locked in hers “… I am about to become the new owner – co-owner, right? – of this place.”

She hugged Durrel, he hugged her, strongly and tenderly, in a second wave of physical touch that was pledging, warm, alluring… “You´re holding one poem back, Durrel…” she said, “I have seen it.”

“What?! Which one?!” he jumped. She reads minds too?!

“When were you planning to recite it to me?” She gave him the sunniest of smiles and said, her voice enveloping Durrel in ripples of love…, “You entitled it “Quest”: “I like you,” said the lady seated before me.

“I too like what I see and I like what I feel when I see it,” I managed to say about to collapse in anticipated pleasures.

“I’m ready,” she whispered offering her dewy petals, her moist branches for my quest of the grail.

“Love me,” the sound of her voice reaching my ears in ripples as I rushed to journey her length.

I could hardly reply, “I do,” my lips busy in mistaking hers for a stream.

“Oh,” she chanted.

“Oh,” I joined in, the language of two fused into one.

“Mmm,” she exploded.

“Mmm,” I succeeded in mimicking, my word power drastically dwindling.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled, a smile flickering in her lips.

“Oh, my,” replied an infatuated me…

“Come,” she demanded, lightning flashing out of the corner of her eyes.

“Sure,” I heard myself saying in ebbing diction.

“Seek and find,” she turned scriptural for a moment myrrh dripping from the cup of her breasts – “Ah, the cup of your breasts! My grail!” I knelt.

“Let’s find it together,” she invited, “again...”

Durrel soared into a breathtaking surge of surprise and bliss. How did she…? But the sweeping emotions winning him over were far stronger and more pleasant.

Why worry now? Durrel´s response was his poem “Looking at You”: The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

You walk, you smile You loosen your hair.

I watch, I daydream I tremble from head to toe.

You pose, you tease You beckon to me.

I step forward, I stumble I kneel before you.

You are hungry, you are thirsty You are mine.

I´m needing, I´m willing I´m yours.

Looking at you, looking at us Ours.

I close the door, you open to me…

Stillness, expectation, excitement and peace combined, in perfect harmony, on that moment. They cuddled for a second time… After a wondrous while, Durrel let go of the embrace. “Would you wait here for me, Lily?”

She faltered, “Will you – would you come back…?”

“On my knees if I had to!” Durrel proudly spoke. “So, will you – would you wait for me a minute?”

She quickly answered, “Forever! When you return, please close the door behind you… and look at us…” He brightened, rushed down the stairs and out the street to close the deal.

The broker was securely seated on the far bench. “Sir?” he speculated, “Are you having feelings of regret?”

“Why?” asked Durrel.

“Sorry, sir, it has taken you only a few seconds to return. Didn´t like what you saw? Any ghosts…?”

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

“What?!” Durrel looked at his watch. It was back in motion but ticking nine eleven, the hour they were in when he disappeared into the house! He understood and hurried to clarify, “No sweat, boy! I´ll buy the house all right! Where do I sign? I need to get back in and truly explore everything in it.” The estate agent´s face lit up.

A warm wind lightly brushed the new property owner as he dashed in full-sail hopes into the house. The garden, the entire place, had bloomed into life. White lilies were thriving before the naked eye. His hand was already turning the doorknob; he contemplated them in amusement for a split fraction. There´s another white lily awaiting. My white lily – my Lily White, he thought. He closed the door, vanishing from the world´s sight, and sped upstairs.

Promise

by Alina González Serrano (translated by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias) My life is a fight I have every day inspired by my granddaughter´s jingle bell laughter and my family´s support.

I come and go cross spaces struggling against unforgiving time; all I ask for is love, a hug and a kiss as silent promise we will be together, all of us, each new dawn.

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For Them

(translated by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias) For them I fight every day Come and go eager to see them again After a hard day at work.

For them I get up and stand Smile and love During the blessed nights in their company At home. For them my heart, my might My all: family.

While I Water my Flowers

(translated by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias)

I hear my husband type poems while I water my flowers so in love with them so in love with nature: I was born in the countryside plants and animals all around me, my mother tended a small garden girding our humble home and I would follow her and help her with the shears and the watering can…

I live in the city now, fifth-floor, no pets; but a few flower pots do sit on my porch and wait for me every morning as much as they wait for sun or rain.

I hear my husband type poems while I water my flowers so in love with them – so in love with him.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

AN UNEXPECTED WORD ABOUT… on Valentine’s Day While preparing material for The Envoy 107, due February 2021, John B. Lee sent me a poem – a gesture that is becoming something of a welcome tradition – that not only continues to prove his poetic excellence, but also heralded a joint collaboration between him, iconic poet Don Gutteridge and a modest me.

As John commented, “… these three poems written on the same day by poets as a kind of conversation on the subject of love…,” we were generously visited by the muses almost simultaneously, inspired by John´s opening move.

In his email, he wisely remarked, “He (Don) wrote his poem in response, and so too did you... Thus we inspire one another, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, though we live far apart. This conversation in poetry is made possible by the internet. And during COVID19, when we cannot travel to visit one another, we travel psychically by way of virtual journey, though we sojourn in isolation, we travel in the ether and our spirits weave in a tapestry of auras… Valentine’s Day may be associated with Romantic Love, but filial affection and fellow feeling both serve to make us human.”

John´s “Young Love” is impressively suggestive. It speaks of the hot sensuousness ignited by memory, which overcomes the test of time. The poet relives his thoughts in detailed account of time and place and context leaving in the reader a juicy taste of pleasure echoing Marlowe´s immortal line, “And we will all the pleasures prove,” and knits a fine filigree of similes and metaphors with which we blend.

Gutteridge is all breathtaking words in his “Muted.” He confesses to the reader how deep is the love between him and Anne, allowing me to hearken back nostalgically to a tender Bee Gees tune. We can hear – partake in our own experience – the lovers´ murmur, the climb, the “full-blooded ease” and the Phoenixlike rend-mend of the souls. A moving piece to a lucky woman from a luckier man, as Don would tell me he was the fortunate one to have been loved by Anne.

Finally, my “Deeper,” where I humbly praise the woman who is “in my dreams,” the “reliever” who can heal even the sharpest intrusions of my life.

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Thank you, John and Don, for the opportunity to share poetry on this special occasion of Valentine’s Day, accepting me into a trio of two POETS and one who would-be!

Young Love

by John B. Lee the memory of your palm like a warm impression landing gently on my inner thigh under the table at Campbells in London in the indoor late-day darkness of Ronnie Hawkins upscale bar what lingers in recollection is the heat or your hand the imprint of its lifeline like the veins of a leaf in hot sand and this reminder of young love how what quickens the pulse also goes away slowing the heart like an innocent dream in the fragrance of sleep with the moon of the night lit to the duty of tides over seasons of summer’s devoirs

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

there’s a circle I’m closing that’s full as the skin of a peach or the flesh of a plum and it’s sweet to the centre with light

Muted

by Don Gutteridge For Anne in loving memory We whisper words of love as if this feeling is too fragile to be spoken above a decibel, but still they are heard as sweet as sunlight silking the sill below the window that lets the world in to wonder at our muted passion, and when at last our bodies greet in fullblooded ease, vistas unroll, and in that cleaved seizing, our souls are broken and made whole again.

DOON* December 1960 For Anne in loving memory When we went walking the woods below Doon under a sky stitched with stars and a moon The Envoy 107

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above us, groomed luminous, I held your hand like Galahad cupping the Grail or a pilgrim prizing a shrine, and I let the light limning your eyes linger in mine and brim the deep December dark, and this was a night to be remembered long after that first voluptuous surge of affection has simmered, softened and lapsed into love. *Doon is a village in Waterloo County, Ontario

Deeper

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

To my wife, for February 14th, 2021 Under my skin run sensations whispering your name, perennial dwellers persistent afterglows.

You´re in my dreams, a reliever comforting my mind mending my heart smoothing off sharp bits and pieces of me that you pick up as they throb deep sting deep yet you heal them, deeper.

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RICHARD MARVIN GROVE (TAI)

Never Ending Love Transcribed from a Christmas card I wrote to my 92 year old covid quarantined mother whom I have not seen for months.

My heart is broken.

Dear Mother: Do you know that I love you and think of you every day, many times in a day. You are never very far from me remembering that I was once a little boy, a child held in your arms, comforted, loved, cherished. I thought that I was the only one you loved but then I learned you had such an abundance of love that you could give me your never ending love and still give that same love to everyone.

For this I love you forever for teaching me what love is all about. I hope I give you more than a dot of that love back.

I am still hoping that we will be able to see you soon and give you a Christmas kiss from the bottom of my heart.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Covid Restrained Love Dear Graham and Stella: Kim and I send our covid restrained love wishing we could drop in and see you but for now we have to wave over the internet with our unending affection for you both.

It is so important that you are kept safe and sound in these restricted times.

Morning Light A calm soughing from her side of the bed, an angel purrs in the whisper-hour of sunrise.

Mi esposa’s hand, like a soft linen napkin draped over the edge of a table, wedding ring glistens in curtained thin-morning light.

I gently click the door closed behind me and quietly drift down the path to the silence of a cloud-roofed patio room with the palm-swaying The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

mist-filled view of our waking valley.

The ghost of a thrubbing bird echoes in timeless jungle.

Distant oxen mournfully moo to the shadow-less dawn while I wait for you to greet me with your forever beam of generosity.

My Love Flew Kimber, my love flew unseen by me from lumpy path from lumbering bike, thrown, wedged between two trees.

My trembling love-choked fear found her a lifeless cadaver face down, silent, unstirring.

Tears welling I clambered through thorny brush to her silent side, yelling “I am here, I am here, You are alright, I am here” As I held her in my arms, frozen tears of joy whipped, by her, from my ashen cheeks.

The Peeper Frogs Love Song I peddled slowly, ponderously slow, past the spring-melted marsh where the peeper frogs sing.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

They have sung there every year, year after year, for an eon and more.

The ululation is amazing, the piercing, the harshness, the sweet shrill of harmony, the primeval call of procreation.

How could this broadcast be anything other than a fawning love song an ancient longing demand as old as love itself.

Sparks From Love’s Kisses for Kim My darling, remember the fireflies we saw on that June night.

Holding hands we were walking in the dark, home, down the hill toward the silent silver lake, a slight cool breeze in the stillness rustled leaves, stirring grass to sway.

Remember the thousands of fireflies blinking in the almost pitch black so dark, shoulder to shoulder we could hardly see our feet silhouettes of trees floated against a midnight sky.

The air was full, the aroma of spring wafted gently over your shoulder The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

you becoming the blossomed trees.

A distant train wailed its muffled mourning in the veil of iridescent mist that made you glow.

Remember the fireflies.

They were sparks from Love’s kisses.

Flickers of divine inspiration, emanating from the ethereal.

Remember the fireflies.

They were my silent unspoken kisses for you in the stillness of our walk.

I Love You

Antony Di Nardo

I love you as the forest for the trees.

I love your nestlings beneath the eaves.

I blaze a trail deep in the woods and find my way from room to room.

I love how low-lying branches breathe into your crown, spires for a canopy the trees have painted paisley just for us.

Spruce and maples, hemlock and the oak, the apple meant to feed our place in Eden from week to week, and when the wild arbutus of the coast returns as a memory west of where we are right now, the rust and ruby robe of bark, bald and patched.

I love to talk with you about olive groves, lemon trees, the miracle of mangos The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

by the Med, the mighty matapalo that gives the clouds their shape and the over-arching cedars of Lebanon waiting for the world to change.

And all around us, the palms and flares of floral bursts, orange blossoms puckered to the nth degree of scent sensations, the sweet sap of pine in the air when we walk in sync into these woods that gleam like a great candle.

Love Potion #50 Your love is a rocket.

An apple a day.

Your love never waves goodbye.

It’s always the ocean and close to the sea.

Like a mountain stands or climbs, sits but never begs.

Your love accordions.

Rejuvenates.

Circulates.

It accommodates.

It orchestrates all those events that follow The Birth of Cool by Miles Davis.

Your love abhors the obsolete whenever we say we’re done with that.

By virtue of this power vested in me, your love is always within my grasp.

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

IF I WERE

by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado If I were the Wind I would play with your hair And give a fresh breeze Wherever you were If I were the Sun I would brighten your face And enlighten the darkness For you in your place If I were a pigeon I would fly to your side And there I would feel Like if I were a Bride

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

If I were a bird I could find you in a throng And early in the morning You would wake with my Song EVEN THOUGH

by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado Even though I don’t want To love you Even though there are five Good reasons telling me I can’t love you Even though I want to Forget you Even though I´m trying To find someone That will push you out Of my heart And take your place...

I love you.

I’LL KNOW

by Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado I’ll know it’s Him When our eyes Look into each others And I feel the warmth Of blush Invade my face.

I’ll know it’s Him When he talks to me And I feel my heart Start a race.

I’ll know it’s Him When he smiles to me The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

And I feel adrenaline Rushing through my veins.

I’ll know it’s Him When my body answers To his touch… trembling.

I’ll know it’s Him When I see love in His eyes And my whole being Will be, with joy… quivering.

I’ll know it’s Him When he kisses me And I feel the ancestral Cry Of my body…

Calling Him! PENELOPE

by Miriam Vera Estrella Delgado

Penelope has to choose a Suitor Which one will be right for Her? She will look into their eyes And try to read their souls Then she will listen To what they have to say: This one seems tender and Loving His blue eyes talk of poems And praise They offer tranquil love And happiness The Envoy 107

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A quiet life full of Protectiveness.

The other one Has black eyes like Charcoal There’s a light of fire Burning inside them.

They talk of passion And laughter They tell of temptation And games.

Another looks at her With his green eyes They invite her To pleasure and love He seems to mean An uncertain future Like the tide in his eyes Comes and goes.

The fourth one Has big hazel eyes They talk of love And tenderness He seems to be honest And Truthful His look is a silent Caress.

How can Penelope Find Out Which represents Happiness?

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FEBRUARY 2021 THE ENVOY 107 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

MASTHEAD – Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández our Cuban CCLA Ambassador as Editor – Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias our Cuban President as Assistant Editor – Adonay Pérez Luengo our Cuban VP as Reviewing Editor – Lisa Makarchuk our Canadian VP as Reviewing Editor – Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado our Cuban Poet Laureate as Reviewing Editor

joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu

CANADA CUBA LITERARY ALLIANCE FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, JUST LET US KNOW!

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