a curatorial content blog of modern and contemporary poetry, poetics, photography, philosophy, permaculture, and the arts

ingressions

i see you in my veins river tide on heavy lids from night’s
bowels a faint slurping

the pearl in his skull a porous sheen in a night bridge the last
star safe on the dark side

somewhat bruised the crescent’s womb a shallow breathing
in the heat a pulse in the maple’s breast

a labyrinth thickening in my hand an eel stuck in blue air
the tail vanishing eternally

on whale clouds hanging on to me for breath a swollen sun
sliding airless on sharpened knives

a monkey dangles from the orange crane musing on the position
of the rose vs allegation of lasciviousness

Snow

Most words that begin with the letters st convey a sense of the stationary, of being
stuck or still. One might say that story is an exception, as stories change, though
people seem to prefer to stick to them as they are.

Interestingly, many words that begin with str seem to break out into some kind of movement: stream, stray, strike.

Words beginning with sn often convey of sense of sneering. In his book on poetry
John Frederick Nims includes a photograph of a woman, her nose lifted in disgust.
Think snicker, snake, snide.

Why does the word snow behave differently? Is it just that snow— what falls and
fills the branches of tall pines— may be considered beautiful where a snake (for
many, reflexively) is not? I cannot quickly come up with another word that com-
bines the sn sound with a long o. The vowel seems to carry the word beyond its
origins.

All yesterday it rained. This morning when I woke and looked out my window,
yes: swirling snow. Strange that in January, in Vermont, that was a surprise.

I may not have said it out loud, but I did think: oh.

snow     so now is known

bocciolo ingiallito …
un amore impossibile
mai sbocciato

yellowed tight bud …
an impossible love
never blooming

stelle infinite
un pescatore disegna i confini
tra il mare e il cielo

endless stars
a fisherman draws the borders
between the sea and sky