Guamazing!!

Thought Fausto would enjoy this poem I found:

“Faustina, or Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop

Tended by Faustina
yes in a crazy house

upon a crazy bed,

frail, of chipped enamel,

blooming above her head

into four vaguely roselike

flower-formations

the white woman whispers to

herself. The floorboards sag

this way and that. The crooked

towel-covered table

bears a can of talcum

and five pasteboard boxes

of little pills

most half-crystallized.

The visitor sits and watches

the dew glint on the screen

and in it two glow-worms

burning in a drowned green

Meanwhile the eighty-watt bulb

betrays us all,

discovering the concern

within our stupefaction;

lighting as well on heads

of tacks in the wallpaper,

on a paper wall-pocket,

violet-embossed, glistening

with mica flakes

It exposes the fine white hair,

the gown with the undershirt

showing at the neck,

the pallid palm-leaf fan

she holds but cannot wield,

her white disordered sheets

like wilted roses.

Clutter of trophies,

chamber of bleached flags!

– Rags or ragged garments

hung on the chairs and hooks

each contributing its

shade of white, confusing

as undazzling.

The visitor is embarrassed

not by pain nor age

nor even nakedness,

though perhaps by its reverse.

By and by the whisper

says, “Faustina, Faustina…”

“¡Vengo ,señora!”

On bare scraping feet

Faustina nears the bed.

She exhibits the talcum powder,

the pills, the cans of “cream,”

the white bowl of farina

requesting for herself

a little coñac;

complaing of, explaining,

the terms of her employment.

She bends above the other.

Her sinister kind face

presents a cruel black

coincident conundrum

Oh, is it

freedom at last, a lifelong

dream of time and silence,

dream of protection and rest?

Or is it the very worst,

the unimaginable nightmare

that never before dared last

more than a second?

The acuteness of the question

forks instantly and starts

a snake-tongue flickering;

blurs further, blunts, softens,

separates, falls, our problems

becoming helplessly

proliferative.

There is no way of telling.

The eyes say only either.

At last the visitor rises,

awkwardly proffers her bunch

of rust-perforated roses

and wonders oh, whence come

all the petals.

This movie is fabulous! It’s GUAM-derful!