Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 400 journals on six continents; and 23 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful travel companion Rocinante (that is, her knapsack), listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
Chapbooks
On Restless Wing
Originally published in The Seraphic Review (Issue 2, November 2023)
I.
In the dark moments before dawn’s twilight,
heavy bodies alight, feet scurry,
chitters scurry across my roof.
I search in the light of the full-moon-
fractured clouds & see only dim tin.
II.
In the silent moments of a Sunday morn,
thick wings beat outside my windows,
my doors, thin talons clinging upon screen.
III.
A mockingbird watches me
through the transom.
IV.
Ani scatter as I walk outside.
Their ebony bodies now cling to thin
mucuyo limbs, scattering yellow blossoms.
Those thick beaks closed against my questions.
V.
In these solitary moments, the wind again gusts
& the rain falls … in a lone scurry across my roof.
VI.
A flutter of desperate wings awakens me
from these words. A young warbler,
pale yellow breast heaving, grasps
the fine edge of a poster.
VII.
I open the door to its freedom.
But she chooses to perch above my desk,
watching me, watching …
VIII.
A mockingbird innocently crosses
my threshold, pecking at a moth
dying in this morning.
IX.
& it chases the warbler from transom
to window, thin talons clinging to screen,
from window to transom to window,
the beat of wings overhead.
X.
Mockingbird abandons the pursuit.
Yet that pale-breast bird
seeks refuge in these words.
XI.
I abandon them for a moment.
& when I return, the warbler has taken
its freedom through my open door.
Yungas
Originally published in Backchannels Journal (Fall 2023)
On this wind-carressed
morning, clouds part over the
jungled mountains &
more-distant snowy peaks of
the Cordillera Real
The Field Guide Poetry Magazine 