Palo Borracho
Chip Livingston
The jacaranda blooms beside the drunk stick tree.
Come. I see you swelling with nectar. Hear you,
Venteveos, shriek till night. Come. See me.
The jacaranda blooms beside the drunk stick tree.
The violent violet petals pollen weep.
A bichofeo sings of you with open throat and beak.
A jacaranda blooms beside the drunk stick tree.
I see you swell with nectar, hear you shriek.
About this poem
“A palo borracho and a jacaranda grew across the street from my bedroom window in Montevideo, and when their blooms fell, the street was purpled with petals and pollen. From those two trees, these loud, yellow, bandit-masked birds would wake me up each day with their repeated shrieks of ‘ven te veo,’ ‘come, I see you’ – the call that gives the great kiskadee its Uruguayan name. In Argentina, they hear the birds’ call as “bicho feo,” “ugly bug,” and so the great kiskadee carries that name there.” – Chip Livingston
About Sara Eliza Johnson
Chip Livingston is the author of “Naming Ceremony” (Lethe Press, 2014). He teaches in the MFA programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Regis University, and lives in Denver, Colo.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Chip Livingston. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org, Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
