Fina, Your Poem is Not Lost
  By Lonnie Howard

The city of Santa Fe papered it to a bus stop bench
on Pacheco Street, covered it with clear plastic
—part of “Art in Transit.” And now far
from your Caribbean island warm bodies lean
against your words.
Your poem is showing signs
of wear. People pick at its edges as they wait,
and the deep snows
of last winter softened it;

its dried edges curl now in the sun.
How many times have I driven by and caught
only your first line, in two languages:
                 Si mis poemas todos se perdiesen...
                 Should all my poems be lost...

The sun at this altitude burns; the letters
are fading. Finally, I parked nearby and walked
to your poem, pen and paper in hand.
Two men sat on the bench and I asked them shyly
if they could move, please, so that I might read
the poem they were leaning against.

They looked startled – what poem?
One man was eating a cheese sandwich
and he threw his head back at the sun,
stringy silver hair and beard shaking as he laughed.
He stood and gestured graciously with his hand
presenting your poem as if he were a magician
pulling a rabbit from a hat:

    “Sea mi huesped – be my guest.”

The other man stood, blushing, missing teeth,
but he smiled broadly, happy to be involved.
We three looked at your fervent incantation
– this miraculous migration of a poem papered
to a bus stop bench in the City of Holy Faith.

“Fina Garcia Marruz, Cubana, born in Havana, 1923.”
Are you still alive? I want you to know
this poem is not lost. I copied it hurriedly
while the silver haired man roared in Spanish
      into cloudless blue
            ...volveria bramando, otra vez, con las albas.
                                                       ....eternal poetry

             would return again with every dawn, thundering.