I could fish for hours,
Lose myself in a marsh
Carried by giant carp,
A dragonfly hook its shadow on my eye
And guide me back to my surprised self.
Fishing in silence beside my father,
I would glance up at him,
Catching the fishes that got away,
Years there lost in him,
A sadness inseparable from living.
I caught once, his fish reflection,
Sinking below the surface.
A name so light you hear it twice,
Like a wing it flies from having been said,
And is buried in the fall the all…
A sad name long on alacrity,
Life lived as though alated,
Alarmed by my alalia and assassin’s dagger…
Abecedarian of homeroom attendance,
Learning the alphabet of experience
And losing a language in alienation.
Almost suffering from aeriality,
Like twin sisters separated at birth,
Always missing each other by a breath.
Ala: alias Allah, Alaq and Ahala…
Last seen riding a butterfly;
Alas, vanishing à la bonne heure.
in memory of Homer Plante
Didn’t the prosody present a paradox,
Our voices in voiceless meter,
Our perceived ideal deceived,
Ashes in the lamp that was glowing?
Didn’t the sense seem fleeting
And it was only ever our feeling
For the heartbeat of correspondence,
The lived thing on a dead page?
After attending to externals
We began with inner sense.
Counting every measure
We saw clearer to a center.
We placed a shadow on a shore
Of eternal whisperings,
And drew a line in our minds
Like the footsteps of Ozymandias…
for my wife
Halcyon mornings can save a marriage.
The glittering lake is level to the bright land,
Blue is suffused with the stillness of sand
As we breathe air from another realm
And our senses waken unaware.
Even in distraction and despair
We are spellbound by the silence,
Inundated by a placid flood of heat and light,
Permeated by quiescence,
The children playing, as in a lakeside painting,
Pacified by a powerful calm.
All is quiet in us, our vows unvoiced,
Arguments overwhelmed and soundless as the shore,
Lulled by tranquilizing hours
Far from chaos and confrontation,
Healed in respite of all turbulence and storms.
I peel a red apple
Savoring the white rose
Hidden in the fruit.
I crush almonds
And see a liquid flower
Blossom in water.
I roast almonds
And the air is wood-scented
As a wine cellar.
I pour red wine
And the apple is whole.
With miniature gold latches
Engraved for treasury doors of diminutives,
You open them after many years,
All that’s left are rings of dust, a teardrop of light.
All that’s left is a tiny cleft,
A soft bed where a pearl was bled,
And a mirror under the lid
Which opens like its own jewel.
Meeting her, I felt drunk on crabapple wine.
I stood under a crabapple tree in bloom
Dazzled by the pink foaming branches,
Tasting tartness infused in raindrops,
Breathing the sweet air of a spring shower,
While falling petals paved
An endless road of crabapple trees in bloom
Where I went staggering and in love,
One spring day worth a thousand French wines.
What can I do with all this wood
Lost for a year to the Amazon River?
I squeeze a plank and feel the rainforest
Ooze through my fingers.
I look at the drowned wood
Through the red earth tones in the grain
And I am submerged in thought.
What can I do with lumber so wild
It warps at the touch of my hand.
Who can cut down a jungle rain?
Who can hammer nails into water?
Even to burn it might begin a river.
Whenever I hear your voice, I’m a beekeeper,
My hand in the honey of the droning hive;
I can hear a cat purring inside a pyramid,
Conch waves, music box with ballerina,
Your voice pregnant with love,
Sprawling bedsheets stirring in dreams,
Spring wafting its aura into the room,
Waking us to love, to sleep, to more dreams.
Whenever I hear your voice, I’m kissed
By the shape of your mouth, warmth of your lips,
And flesh of its naked sound, the wild honey
Of hearing you from the inside.
At last the church is open to the heavens,
Not since its consecration has a congregation
Been closers to a spirit maker.
Fall leaves fall through rafters
And gather at the altar stones.
Its ascension is part accession.
The night belongs to real estate.
The owner cannot attorn; and so,
It’s clear to us in one lifetime
The insufficiency of faith,
The shifting sands of substance,
The cloud over the title,
Structure amassed in rubble,
On this eighth day of creation
After the first seven have failed.
Salvatore Ala 