I felt a rush in the lucid madrugada, but it was only peaceful intrusion

I felt a rush in the lucid madrugada, but it was only peaceful intrusion.
Evening grape arbor, sipping pisco-sour, planning the next day in Providencia
in the western shadow of Aconcagua.
Taking the metro, claiming my space in the tunnel, looking up to see;
Pausing, glancing a solemn sacrament with the rest of the rushed.

There were buses, there were taxis, there were beggars in the street.
Ice cream vendor boys and musicos, and clowns with a frown elbowing the steady urban beat.
Boys in the fountains certainly get their respite from the arid summer heat.
Not so the girls. Staying home helping in the kitchen or to be pretend mothers.
And the boys by night slept in the forest park, or under the bridge, hushed…
together in docile packs.  

Starlings waited their turn, lifting into the hollow birch while Mass was sung in the church.
There was no argument. They waited patiently in their queue.
A few more years for these perennials. An earwig evades capture by the grackle. Who knew?
Having seen and been aware of this most mystical search.

Overtaken by the gypsy band with a gun after the late-night metro run.
Stiff-armed the straggler who mistook me for the mark, "no"...
staggering back, away from my arms-length, eyes glossed wide at this extranjero…
Still several blocks from home, on the edge of the shadow green.

When straight into my eyes without so much as a split-second look away…
To say, “she was murdered, you know”.
Secret knowing, that she could no longer keep.
Time intercession and the essential word.
Weight transferred.

An unbroken undertone of the contemplative, the unspoken word in the memoir.
Escape and freedom does not come gratis but at the expense of these requerdos.
Curator of this museum, caretaker of these memories. A votive lit...
I felt a rush in the lucid madrugada, but it was only peaceful intrusion.