New Words and Pictures by Wayne H. W Wolfson

Saudade (for Marina)

At first I was trying to make my mind up where to go as I had no place to be. Initially, I was slowly swaying from side to side. Had anyone caught me, I could have pretended to merely be shifting from one foot to the other. Then my head would move diagonally to the right, my neck pulling the rest of my body after it. When everything was caught up, my head would then go to the left. This back and forth gave my body the slowed down locomotion of a tadpole swimming; both my hands, thumbs hooked on the outside were tucked into my pants pockets.

I had to cross the dance floor, no one except the bandoneon and guitara seemed to notice me so that I had to weave among the moving couples; a vast richly colored, crillion hedge maze which took me the length of one song to complete.

I look up; there were two layers of stars out tonight. The ones which dotted the green and black cords that were strung from one tree to the next all around the plaza and then those that were higher up. Higher than where even the angels swim, faintly dotting the ripe stone fruit skin colored sky. Those others were too far away and tiny to be real. Beauty too can be like that.

- Wayne H. W Wolfson 2014

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