TAMPA BAY
Leaves glitter, my lifted oars
Sparkled as if set with diamonds.
The water was like a rug
Woven out of silver threads.
The sky was one long cloud,
A reclining nude of white vapor,
The shore, a fence of mangroves,
Unseen warbler repeats its one note,
Egrets nests on the branches.
I can hear the sound of snakes
Crawling through the grasses.
I am far-away from what makes one lonely.
FLYING TO ROME
As I leave the United States,
I look down on the many roads,
Car after car.
I'm glad I'm not down among these lethal beings.
There is a different perspective from a distance,
The evening sun
Turns the cars into gold.
I watch these golden beings below.
Distance has turned the dangerous into ornaments.
I think of our belief in God.
THE DAY OF THE TRAIN
Their train goes by the first town,
On the journey for his wife to see her mother.
He had told a girl with white gold hair,
He would pass through her small town at a certain time.
He looked out the window;
There was the girl with the white gold hair
Standing out in the cold on the station platform.
In their compartment, he poured
His wife another glass of sherry.
She looked at him, asked,
"Why are your crying?"
He said, "Something got in my eye.
Might be a cinder."
THE SAD RETURN
Daylight begins, the puddles
Or water around the rice ruffle
From a silver into a pastel blue.
Bells ring from the Certosa di Pavia,
Brown-robed monks start filling
Bottles with cognac and perfume.
A donkey shakes a fallen yellow leaf
Off its black mane. In small stream
Along the asphalt road, Green
Frogs open golden eyes.
The faint song from an unseen bird.
It was as if the leaves were singing.
We will arrive at Malpensa early
For an early flight to Tampa.
We will depart from each other in New York.
THE JOURNEY DOWNWARD
She with the white gold hair
Who cringed on white silk pillows
In white corners and holds
The stem of a white lily in her hand
Invited me to follow her downward
Into the darkness of the earth.
She sunk downward, easily moving
As if there were a tunnel in the ground.
I followed, and the earth seemed
More like a mist than something solid.
When we reached a hollow,
The dirt was rainbowed colored.
Two glasses of red wine were
On a jade-colored stone.
We drunk and looked upward,
Saw the soles of shoes. People
Hurrying to hate and destroy.
to forum