Origami Microchap

Cover: ’Cat at Plaza del Teatro’
by author

I.
Before
the sky even
begins to lighten, bird
song echoes down the thin cobble
stone streets

II.
In a doorway
a plump woman sleeps
slumped on her stool
her bunches of flowers
soaking in the
morning’s damp sunlight

V.

After the day rains
after the sun sets, dusk
darkens, fog settles
into this valley . . . damp &
chill is the evening air

VI.
I gaze out this window to
another sharp night, moonlight
seeping through ragged clouds &
silence sweeping lanes.

•

Lorraine Caputo © 2025

MOSAICS
A Colombia Road Trip

Mosaico I

- Cartengena

In this midnight hour,
what is that I hear on the
gusting wind? Is it
the shuffle of heavy palm
leaves or a blustering rain?

Mosaico II

- Palomino

Sometimes the rain brings
the clouds & others it clears
nebulous heavens

•

Lorraine Caputo © 2024

SANTA MARTA AYRES
On Colombia’s Caribbean Sea

Cover art, ‘’Night Visitor” by author

•

I.
Down below on the
     littered beach, fishermen
            prepare a night’s work
Nets stowed, lantern
     checked, oars clunking
            to deep waters

Wind gusting, thunder-
    less lightning trembling
        over the mountains
The sea washing softly, a
    dulled verdigris, the silken
        sky dissolving

II.

For the first time in
these many nights, through a tear
in the clouds I see

stars – the horns & the
Pleiades of Taurus, red-
orange Mars looming

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Cover image by author:

Volcán Villarrica & Lago. Pucón, Chile

•

SAVORING THE STORM

Suddenly the sky outside my room
grows dark, swift cloud shadows fall ‘cross
windows, deep thunder grumbles,
rattling panes … sharp lightning
flashes so near, I
can almost touch
it, I can
savor
it

PORTENT

Before the afternoon rains
come, the sun shines bright, its light
so hot, so searing … portent
of storms a-brewing.

REVELATION

All chill night
the rain falls

& perhaps come morn
it will cease

& the clouds will lift
to reveal

fresh mountain snows

WHEN WILL

The clouds are gathering this night,
veiling the waxing luna’s light.
Stars are hidden away
from my searching, questioning sight.
When will these rains become more slight
& days cease to be grey?

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Cover image by author:

Volcán Villarrica & Lago. Pucón, Chile

•

I.
Heading off into
a late Patagonian
sunset, violet &
fuchsia clouds reflected in
the gilded Río Chubut

    – Rawson, Argentina

II.
A dusk wind
swirls brown dust
down near-
deserted streets

The glass door of a café,
of a beauty shop opening

A phone booth slamming shut,
its receiver shaking

    – Trelew, Argentina

III.
Winter-leached grass waves
in the austral wind, sheening
like sleek mara fur

    – to Camarones, Argentina

mara – native Patagonian hare (Dolichotis patagonum)

IV.
Fine rain against the pane
woke me – & now in this
hour of yet darkness
thick foggy silence
drifts through the streets

    – El Calafate, Argentina

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Cover: ‘Río Pilcomayo 3’
by Lorraine Caputo

•

abandoned long
ago, now awash
with the buzz of frogs, the
near full-moon nudging
slow away the
day’s sullen clouds

II.
As midnight arrived
toting a new year,
a breeze billowed,
obscuring their passes
with dust shadowed
by the full moon

III.
Across this flat
forgotten corner,
marshes mirror
today’s nebulous
sky.
Amidst jungles
wend thin country
roads scraped into the
silty soil.
Red-
marked birds fly from
caranday palm
to caranday.
& this
day grows chillier,
quieter with fine
rain arriving.

IV.
Through these empty Sunday night streets,
down towards the port & across the swollen
river, thunder rumbles – a voice I haven’t
heard for many moons, absent I have
been from tropic airs. Once more my
journey shall wait. The storm ends. Drops
drip from the roof, into narrow patios.

 Click title to open PDF microchap

Cover artwork 'Blue Night Sea'

by author

•

MORNINGTIDE

Today dawns
almost clear
golden sun
stroking the
palm leaves

I watch the
now-calmer
sea below

Green ribbons
curling thick
e’er fraying
foaming ‘pon
beige sand

CARIB

This
Carib
Sea changes
from stormy blue
to salt-hued green &
indigo . . . . Then the clouds,
the agitated
wash of waves &
a shower
falling
deep.

MOONRISE

Full moon rises o’er
jungle hills, to dry frog song
& even-sea-crush.

Its light whitens palm
fronds dancing in a breeze left
behind by the rain.

CARIBBEAN DAWN

The starry night
dawned nebulous
yet with a
crescent moon.
Caribbean
dull, fracturing
foam & pierced
with showers.

Far asea a
rainbow splashes
across this
leaden day.

Click title to open PDF microchap

Cover photo by author

•

THIS PRESENT

A heavy fog
shrouds the
pre-dawn city

bathing it in
a strange
brightness
& silence

the hills, the
buildings on the
plaza’s other side
disappeared

focusing only
on the immediate,
only the
here & now

-

AT THIS FOUR O’CLOCK HOUR

Sheer voile fog drapes
over the valley
& still streets
A dog’s barks echoes
down the narrow canyon
of the colonial city

& on the balcony
of a yet-open bar
(at this four-o’clock hour)
A woman sings
to ballads drifting
through the wide door

QUITO DAWN

On the plaza below, a
woman’s nasal voice
calling huevos slices the
golden morning air

From church to church, the
mass bells are ringing

Traffic quickens its
pace down these once-empty streets,
a vendor’s cartwheels
rattle across the flagstones

& that awakening song
is still playing in my mind ....

-

NOCTURNE

The quiet guitar,
the hushed voices are asleep.
All that awakens
me, that lulls me now is the
rain streaming down my terrace.

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Cover photo: Máncora seaview
By Lorraine Caputo

•

WASHES 

The clouded dawn in
a pale rose, the sea calmly
upon the fine sand

-

SEASIDE MORN

Slowly day
lightens the sea-
misted sky, silhouetting
thorn trees

Below my balcony
a pace of burros
walks through
the dry forest

the twig-snap
the leaf-crunch
barely heard above
the surf’s wash

At a distant
bamboo house
a cock greets
the borning day

-

STRANDS

With the changing tides
the wind rises, whipping strands
that loosely bind lives

NIGHT’S LIFE 

Bats flit from eaves

      crickets rasp, some

            nightbird calls

toads hop, stop, hop

      from under rocks

the waves crush

Beneath the sky

      obsidian

            speckled with

a million stars

      a gazillion

galaxies

-

SEASIDE SUNSET

Yet pelicans &
boobies soar above, they dive
into the pallid

fuchsia & aquamarine
waters of this cloud-
veiled sunset, gold-rimed orchid

& rose, misted by the sea.

Beneath The Enchanted Moon

(Galápagos Nights)

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Cover photo by author

•

I.

In the night of a

             moon yet to rise, yet to dance

             Through shorn clouds, crickets

             rasp, the sea ebbs & petrels

             twirl on silent silver wings.

II.

This three-quarter moon

shadows torn clouds, edges them

with platinum, stars

between, in the clean

slate-blue sky. I listen to

the sea’s lullaby

III.

Clouds lustrous beneath

the near-full moon

embraced by a

copper ring

Broad hands of opuntia

silhouette against

the sky

The night drips

& now & again

the chitter of petrels

in flight

IV.

Through torn clouds gleams the

past-midnight full moon. Outside

a huaque awaits

my return, beck’ning

me to the Land of Dreams of

this primitive night.