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Eleven bombs had gone off the previous night, most of them in this neighborhood, which is called Teusaquillo, and it is one of the pleasantest in Bogotá. —Alma Guillermoprieto Flowering sietecueros trees: How easily we married ourselves to the idea of that bruised light outside the window, capillary fibers of the linen, stained wood of the door frame. Deepening hallway. Beyond the stucco portal, crushed purple. At night, tinnitus we thought, the ringing after an explosion, a frenzied inner ear axle squeal, until I placed my stethoscope's bell on the purpled ceiling: Bats at roost under the terracotta tiles, each squeak a vector between mountains, sicarios ricocheting through the dark. "If you press your skull between the pillows, it's like a lullaby." At dawn our windows imploded from the street. Before the glaziers knocked, a breeze: Blood-sweet draft of begonias rising again from the iron grillwork of our little yard.

I have known these estuaries — the channels and canals, the backwaters that flush and eddy to the Pacific, I have skimmed that muddied slurry, felt the nip in the throat where the salt in the air is the salt of the coast, I have tacked where the tide is incomplete: no rollers and breakers, only an ebb that rocks the wayfarers — a rush of silver, the gavel-smack of mullet in the night, mud crabs elbowing denwards under concrete slabs of boat ramps — I have stalked where herons stilt and spear baitfish in green afternoons, cast crab pots in loose analemmas to watch the black sonar spread, tracked prawn trawlers on the broadwater crawling back in the lavender dawn then sat at the jetty’s edge and shucked those tiger shells, cast sucked heads back into the dark, crushed mussel shell underfoot for the burn of sharpened chitin, stepped where stingrays wallow and idle, shuffling their barbs, waiting to strike. I have spent half my life in low tide — nights where I have not known if I am contracting or dragging out again, where the movement of the water is the movement of my mind — unending comings and goings of sounds and narrows, those entry points to my two continents — and my history is the history of currents: a canal small enough to catch a childhood in its net, water vast enough to divide a life.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice— Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre.   The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods—rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man— Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

You don’t need a machine to do that. A plastic bag will do. But he built it, his tools cast about in the unit while he got up his nerve to use it. Nothing more was stored there. A poured cement floor, a triple-locked door after door after door down a corridor reeking with the odor of everything over. In heretofore phrases, he left a note outlining his Help! in argot so wrought it was hopeless to ferret out his intent, meant or not. A ball-peen hammer was all she had. The shards cut her. What else had he hid? At least, she cried, he’d thought ahead. He drove home instead.

If you find yourself half naked and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing, again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says you are the air of the now and gone, that says all you love will turn to dust, and will meet you there, do not raise your fist. Do not raise your small voice against it. And do not take cover. Instead, curl your toes into the grass, watch the cloud ascending from your lips. Walk through the garden's dormant splendor. Say only, thank you. Thank you.

Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out in our directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you with the animals dying around us taking our feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you thank you we are saying and waving dark though it is

Gettin’ together to smile an’ rejoice, An’ eatin’ an’ laughin’ with folks of your choice; An’ kissin’ the girls an’ declarin’ that they Are growin’ more beautiful day after day; Chattin’ an’ braggin’ a bit with the men, Buildin’ the old family circle again; Livin’ the wholesome an’ old-fashioned cheer, Just for awhile at the end of the year. Greetings fly fast as we crowd through the door And under the old roof we gather once more Just as we did when the youngsters were small; Mother’s a little bit grayer, that’s all. Father’s a little bit older, but still Ready to romp an’ to laugh with a will. Here we are back at the table again Tellin’ our stories as women an’ men. Bowed are our heads for a moment in prayer; Oh, but we’re grateful an’ glad to be there. Home from the east land an’ home from the west, Home with the folks that are dearest an’ best. Out of the sham of the cities afar We’ve come for a time to be just what we are. Here we can talk of ourselves an’ be frank, Forgettin’ position an’ station an’ rank. Give me the end of the year an’ its fun When most of the plannin’ an’ toilin’ is done; Bring all the wanderers home to the nest, Let me sit down with the ones I love best, Hear the old voices still ringin’ with song, See the old faces unblemished by wrong, See the old table with all of its chairs An’ I’ll put soul in my Thanksgivin’ prayers.

Thanks for the Italian chestnuts—with their tough shells—the smooth chocolaty skin of them—thanks for the boiling water— itself a miracle and a mystery— thanks for the seasoned sauce pan and the old wooden spoon—and all the neglected instruments in the drawer— the garlic crusher—the bent paring knife— the apple slicer that creates six perfect wedges out of the crisp Haralson— thanks for the humming radio—thanks for the program on the radio about the guy who was a cross-dresser— but his wife forgave him—and he ended up almost dying from leukemia— (and you could tell his wife loved him entirely—it was in her deliberate voice)— thanks for the brined turkey— the size of a big baby—thanks— for the departed head of the turkey— the present neck—the giblets (whatever they are)—wrapped up as small gifts inside the cavern of the ribs— thanks—thanks—thanks— for the candles lit on the table—the dried twigs— the autumn leaves in the blue Chinese vase— thanks—for the faces—our faces—in this low light.

Literally the thing has been gutted, a ragged gash carved under its tail to midway up its chest, eyes like stagnant water, horns intricate as a woodwind. Where did the viscera go? Where do the viscera ever go? I am in a car driving to the northernmost point on this spit. Porte de Mort. Death’s Northern Door. Literally where my grandmother lives. Her 89-year-old cousin has just fallen out a window but is all right, the bruises like stained glass. Enthusiasm. To be in God. My grandmother says it is proof, and I nod my head because I too would like to live in such a world where an eighty-nine year old crawls out a window and falls seven feet to the ground, in turn the miracle of her body stained a deep blue, vitreous. In one room of the unfinished mansion where we will celebrate the day, the ninety-year-old matriarch sleeps in her four-poster bed under the canopy of a wedding dress, its hundred eyelets a fallacy. After dinner someone will hand around an indulgence of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, the lady’s dark cheek marred as if she has been scratched. Who at this table fled the police? Who left that place in flames, the rubble of infinite hearths? The deer’s eyes like perfect cataracts, the evidence cooling. When I think of my room in the earth, I can’t breathe. A friend of a friend recently hit a small bear with his car. At the end of my favorite novel a bear is dancing on a makeshift stage, the bear a grotesquerie like the rest of us. No one stopped to help, said my friend. Traffic barely slowed. I do not judge this, or even the surreptitious footage of the workers somewhere on the killing floor, stomping the breast-heavy creatures with their rubber boots. How we raise them not to fly, what should waft gnostically through the air, the hollowness of evolving. My heart is doing that thing again, saying climb the stairs on your knees. I tell a friend a man halfway across the world has been killed, torn apart by motorbikes, each limb tied in a different direction. Could a universe be born this way? One minute you are scarping the silvery bark off a birch when it comes to you forever and there you lie in the bed of a blood-smeared truck at a stoplight on Highway 41 because this is the season of messages. The man was a teacher. He taught girls. When they came for him he told his children not to cry. Then the men took out half his bowel, the viscera steaming as they do, and they tied him ingeniously in such a way that they tore him apart. In that other place three million of us died. When I left, I left them all behind. In the unfinished mansion someone will ask me what I’m thankful for. What to say? That one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen was a paper nest secreted by wasps, and that in the summer I would sleep under it, the runnelled mass turning like a planet in the moonlight? I will admit I was in favor of war and now look what’s happened. At the end of the road the man driving the truck will eat the deer. If I had to watch someone be torn apart by motorbikes I would still be me, which is the horror of it all.

Over the river and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go; The horse knows the way To carry the sleigh Through the white and drifted snow. Over the river and through the wood-- Oh, how the wind does blow! It stings the toes And bites the nose, As over the ground we go. Over the river and through the wood, To have first-rate play. Hear the bells ring, "Ting-a-ling-ding!" Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day! Over the river and through the wood, And straight through the barn-yard gate. We seem to go Extremely slow-- It is so hard to wait! Over the river and through the wood-- Now grandmother's cap I spy! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!