In Bloom

Estaban Rodriguez’s In Bloom is an exquisite array of lyrical poetry. The title poem, for example, takes us through a catalogue of images, beautifully phrased, of family members who ‘lent themselves to a pendulum of trumpets, / accordians, drums, guitars, and lyrics that taught us’ Spanish and solitariness, the disenchantment. Yet, ‘a song / we knew would suddenly come on, give us every reason / to bob our heads, sing along’ even if we didn’t understand the message. Rodriguez can take us to ‘Gomorrah’ and ‘Golgotha,’ and lead us to a prayer that says ‘praise be … luck’ regardless / of circumstances, conditions - was something / that could always be repeated.