FIR TREE

Once I smelled in it

the fullness of iron green

and was gripped and swept

into a road of breaths

and shuffling dark green.

The deep North in an instantaneous gust.

Now that smell is faint,

like childhood, only a memory.

 

But all the same I keep

breathing it

sensing I am treasuring

the few drops I can gather

from the forest sap

in my cupped hands.

More than enough

on the way to the border.

A Christmas present.

The Christmas present I have just received comes from Tucson, Arizona. It is the issue n.22 of the magazine "The Laughing Dog, strictly poetry". In it my poem "Brewing" appears, a poem that, to tell you the truth, I had almost forgotten and quite neglected. It has been a pleasure rereading it and enjoying it a lot almost as if it weren't written by myself.
What's more, in this tiny, sober and beautiful magazine I am in the company of some very famous poets I used to "meet" in journals several years ago, at the beginning of the internet reign when still most submissions and publications were print. Some names : Lyn Lifshin, BZ Niditch, Valentina Cano and probably the most famous of all, Simon Perchick.
So to those who live in the US and might come across this post I recommend "The Laughing Dog".

A SMALL SPIDER IN DECEMBER

 

I have just caught a glimpse of it,

it has disappeared now under a picture,

tiny legs progressing, tiny

hints of forwardness.

Tiny but well defined.

Gracefully ineluctable.

For me an appreciation

of the warmth in my home

Since it’s almost winter outside

with freezing fog in a spreading bite,

so I can’t but like feeling I have

an oasis inside that grows

hosting life.

 

I think it’s just

what you want to last

in the end, of your home,

listen, maybe now you can fade

but this cherry-wood table

you are sitting at will remain

with a picture of Japanese gardens

at this side, on the wall

and a tiny spider staring under,

like a meaning beyond the soul.

BLUE GLACIER

You didn’t want to say anything.

You waited. When you spoke at the end

you could still hear the silence in between the syllables,

a blue glacier.

One of the few left. You felt glad.

It’s here now. You are walking on it,

each sentence swarming and dying into its solidity

so as not to let it melt.