SOME WINTER POEMS
TORCELLO
A few metres of pale
red
mud-splattered,
fishbone patterned stones
and further on, after
a detour
into a just paved,
pale orange path,
the same Devil’s
bridge with no railings
with its two, three
worn out grey steps.
Then, gravel and mud,
and the cathedral,
a massive harmony of
neat old ochre bricks,
time’s rich skin
perspiring.
And the square
nakedness
of the bell tower’s
top,
a gaze in the haze of
nowhere.
Behind, a few fields
and a path of frosted grass
corralled by nettles and
bare trees.
You stand in the light
of deep winter’s
bruised blue
and its silvered hush.
Before stepping back
on the boat
you sense the pulse
of the minutes just
passed,
the touch of the heart
of silence,
the very mud under
your feet a marvel
in the unsheathed
cheeks of the air.
When the boat leaves
you are caught
by thin sunbeams
crisscrossing the sandbars,
banks pencilled by
light
like running diamond
edges
and a breath skimming
your irises.
Through the boat
window you once more gaze
at the light in which
you want to be buried.
TO THE ISLAND
The boat purrs on the
still lagoon water,
one with the sky, the
haze
has swallowed the
horizon-line
and it’s a mutual
stare now, yours and its,
a single glow with
only
the cabin window in
between.
Sitting you are a
king, cruising
on slowly strewing
weightlessness,
breathing fingers of
emptiness,
yes, you feel touched
as if
the air’s gaze had the
constancy of skin.
A row of poles
appears, three, four,
suspended in the
blue-grey and on top of each
a cormorant with
slightly open wings,
none of them takes off
in a skimming rush,
beaks tilted on high,
they just stand and breathe.
Meditation. Sitting
cross-legged, breathing,
learning to do
nothing.
Not for you. You have
never learnt.
But in the boat crossing
the stretch
it can be like that.
You get off now and
your heart
is naked.
Like the silver and
blonde
winter grass of the
sandbars.
Elated by simple
motion
you behold them with
the bare
rhythm of your steps.
WINTER TREES
Through them
the naked line of the
horizon.
What will remain
after the flourishes
of your heart and mind.
They can reveal
life in its inner
pattern, with tendrils
of smoky grey and
mauve shades transpiring,
the memory of blood,
the still
streaming trails of
your will glowing.
On the garlands of the
islands
they frame the stage
for the cormorants,
for the straight lines
of their flights
that brush the
water-skin
and your breath,
wings beating in
rhythmic frenzy,
resolution dashing off
in its native hue.
Keep your gaze still
on a sky filled
with these few
brushstrokes,
on days of bright
dusks
and flowering
pencilled lines,
your eyes will be
gently sandblasted
by heaven’s
essentials, their X-rays pulsing
through the ashes of
your wish.
BEGINNING WITH THE
MOON
You opened the
shutters at dawn,
the weather was clear
and it was very cold,
you took in the still
mountains’ diamond
outlines,
jagged edges like
blades,
Moon and Venus hanging
there
just above the top.
Bright, round moon’s
face like
a cat’s, or a child’s,
when they stare
stunned by their own
presence.
You called me to the
balcony
so I could see those
essential shapes,
radiant rotund
fullness
above massive
stillness.
For some reason I
missed Venus,
I was shivering and
couldn’t locate it,
you were surprised at
how easily
one can lose sight of
dots
as of directions and
the plain
presence of things.
Later we walked, or
daydreamed,
on the narrow road to
the deep north,
that was a railroad
once, and at once
everything was both
present and past,
our crackling steps on
the freshly raked snow,
the rocks carved into
the aching blue,
the instantaneous
neatness of frost
after skiing in the
wood, frost
on our guide’s
eyelashes, on skin
slightly burnt by it,
and the very words
frosted too, swarming
away on the snow
like flashes of spun
sugar,
or encrusted like the
ice on my beard
of thirty years before
when I had first
knocked on your door
on the last night of
the year.
So, we began with the
moon
above knuckled
mountains,
like a meaning
simply unveiled.
Memory’s countenance
slashed by the
present’s blade.
FROST
Tendons and hooves.
And the shiny circles
of horse-shoes.
Their clanking
four-steps of a rhythm
on the hard ground,
the gravel’s stare.
-Much better walking
now, and walking only-
our legs plastered to
tensed ribs
while we whistled and
breathed trying to emulate
the hills and sky’s
aloofness.
Going downhill we even
dismounted,
the road becoming a
slippery glitter,
a blade brushed by
early sunshine.
Then, the softer
ground on the plain, by the river:
it almost sang
to the longed-for
outburst of legs and lungs.
It’s not different now
from the train window
this stretch of muddy,
pasted white stubble,
a sparkling bareness,
a tense, taut skin.
With air and heart in
a clap, undistinguished.
The enduring mantle of
memory.
