And how will the lonely die
And those who are afraid
And those who break the law
And those sick among strangers
And those who come out of their houses
And those who die in their homes
And those on the street
Those who rely on others
And how will the lonely die
How will the distressed die
How will those praying die
With their guardian angels sick
How will the anxious die
How will the impoverished die
How will the hopeless die
How will freedom die
“These African winds cover everything in gold dust. At the same time they open blue clearings, domes, and other dream forms of the Sicilian landscape.”
“Control is maintained with the acquiescence of the people.”
“The sound of the sea doesn’t know the difference between palace windows and gypsy tents.”
“What I love most about abandoned fountains is how the ferns imprint the water
with their presence.”
“I hate the monks and their catacombs.”
“How loudly deceit whispers.”
The King is impressed with himself so often, he could be his own jester.”
“What will remain of Italy? The Kingdom of Sicily.”
“One certain way to know an enemy is to invite conversation.”
Seems everyone is paranoid,
With more and more cases of Covid
Appearing in the news
Like worry with a fuse.
After all the panic buying
Hoarders must be inside dying,
Grave as any virus
Fear replicates like a virus.
But with the elderly at risk
Won’t wisdom grow sick?
And with our sick in danger
Mercy show itself a stranger?
Enumeration can create the feel
That anything is hyperreal.
You couldn’t proclaim a pandemic
Were not death endemic.
Something other than disease
Blows in forests of sick trees.
When these clouds part
Will the sun be at its start?
Warm winds billow white sheets
In the summer sleep of childhood.
The green rustles like shoreline trees.
All the hours are filled with fruit
And the fruit ripens like the light.
Tied to stakes in the ground
The garden regenerates its dreams.
We walk through white sheets
And see our beautiful mothers
On the other side of space.
We walk back through sheets
Leaving the forms in place.
Love is childhood’s point of sail.
Each sheet is a cloud capture.
Each moment is a sunrise.
Inside the machine a metallic unease
Of violence at rest like between thunderclaps
It’s a great white shark with teeth apart
Lair of the white worm of fire
In which metal sludge forms
Composed of sand grease and iron filings
Mostly it was a job for younger guys
Because you had to slip in slenderly
And crouch down midst the parts
Moving out half-buckets at best
I’d emerge dipped in vats of silver
More alloy than clay in my brilliance
Skin tingling with star points
And like a meteor hurtling home
Who knows what it is
Buried under the river
How long is your guess
This cracked ell
These old clamps
Rusty fittings
And what in the world
Was this valve for
Strangest piece of plumbing
I’ve ever seen
Was it for water air or steam
Impossible to know
Impossible to get
The earth out
Impossible to get the river out
The melting snow sinks into the field
Like the map of an imaginary world.
New continents are being considered
By the master builders.
In the time left, tree branches
Draw shadow lines, like an overlay,
On subsiding expanses of snow,
Isolating snow-blind countries
Whose backshores are eroding.
Model of a declining world, in a world
Itself in decline. This island and that,
These clusters and those archipelagoes
Of floating snow and ice,
Everything we thought we were
A meanderable geodesy, imago mundi,
Equatorials exploding one sun at a time.
Salvatore Ala 