[Poem-a-Week] 60 Towards Artesia Station by Jean-Pierre Rueda
The sun eats away chunks of gray clouds for the first time in weeks revealing bright teal skies when La Nostalgia touches my shoulder asking if she may take the bus' window seat as I travel back home from Los Angeles I oblige and recognize her face in the sunny rain which started chipping away the blue clouds after the bus makes its serpentine way leaving several stops and blocks behind us I listen attentively as she unravels the mundane describing me memories from years ago while we travel across downtown LA's never-ending metropolitan facelift of streets cracking, skyscrapers rising businesses closing, windows boarding graffiti scraping, new apartments stacking traffic's hiccupping and inevitable halting Nostalgia erases the cities around us showing me recuerdos I haven't seen outside of dreams hometown neighborhoods with Spanish names and rainy sundays wrinkled streets where I scraped my knees pretending I was scoring goles in a barrio world cup, whistling Los Enanitos Verdes' Luz de Día as the golden hour infuses yellow-red picotee begonias to the skyline's blooming sunset and gives hazel eyes to my late afternoon reminding my words how they turned to red diamonds ruffling stars, roses and allegories the first night I lost sleep writing love poems She tells me to write these moments down or they'll be lost to the loose grip of El Olvido A bell chimed announcement tells me we've arrived at Compton Before leaving, Nostalgia opens her hands and shows me my childhood's heart saying that I must have dropped it somewhere between California and where I am from She whispers as she hands it back to me "Si lo escribimos, nunca lo perdemos si lo escuchamos, siempre lo encontraremos" If we write it, we'll never lose it if we listen to it, we'll always find it As I walk home I notice a trail of jacarandas like spring’s harbinger growing from the cracks between February and March I say it aloud as my heart starts writing
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