Monday, February 20, 2012

INFINITE AT PLAY

Our Sunday walk outside the village,
into the countryside frosted silence,
just a few metres after the asphalt
the path begins, in icy stillness,
the dogs pull at the leash, pant eagerly,
in puffs of breath like the horses of our memory,
which foresaw in their legs the fields’ threads…

our Sunday walk and rite, towards the still
cold and crackling stones of the hill
and now on our feet our gaze taking in a line
of briny needles like fish scales, a line on end
of briny thin gossamers of leaves’ frames
or grass blades,
white arabesques of sky froth,
lace signatures
on the hardened black,
sky and earth
letting go
of their vowels and consonants
like a breath
of faith

“it’s just frost” you say
“ pure frost on grass”
and pass your fingers
on the feather-blade showing
frost dissolving like powder

while I at once smell hay,
highly improbable, yes,
in the dead of winter,
but what do we know of grass
and infinite at play?


I am really into Frost in these days, also because I am getting ready for a last ( unfortunately) lesson on him at the university the day after tomorrow. A few years ago I wrote Infinite At Play and I wasn't at all reading Frost, but now I feel there might be a tiny little bit of his mood in this poem.

3 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

frosted silence is a beautiful phrase and yes I think there's a touch of Frost in here (as well as frost!)

Dave King said...

These lines

sky and earth
letting go
of their vowels and consonants
like a breath
of faith

and the last stanza struck home. I also have to go along with Crafty Green Poet's assessment.

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Thank you Juliet and Dave, today I have had a hectic day for various reasons...with tension and so on...but I have had also a sort of alertness that allowed me to enjoy some sublime poems by Frost in the collection "New Hampshire", I can hardly resist blogging very soon about them...