Quartered Wing
I know his cry,
it splits the muted blue.
From beyond my window,
the Northern Harrier works the sky.
When November unveils,
and even the fields stop to shudder,
though the wood has lost its flame,
the Gray Ghost remains.
The future's past is summer's glory,
the bee, and I, forget and complain,
the hawk overwinters,
indulging the humdrum weather.
We are not captive,
one hundred words move
within the clouded moons,
as we point at remote skies together.
—G. Brunini
8 February 2021
| | |
| | |
LEONARDO'S BICYCLE—a love letter to Da Vinci
We followed the old farm road past blue chicory,
and smiling queen Anne's lace,
to the gravel knoll, with tall grass between us.
Leonardo's bicycle was a two-tone Schwinn Phantom Deluxe,
the spring fork most-famous balloon model.
"Quite the exquisite Cantilever frame with tank and horn," he said. "Handsome whitewall tires and extra-wide chrome fenders."
I nodded, but saw only the broad reach of his face, and color rising on harvest grapes.
The leather saddle seat fit the man that examined the world.
"We'll take the turquoise streamers," he said. "I'll ride the green and black. And for my friend, the radiant-red model, more vermillion-black."
"A token gift," he insisted.
"Add one saddlebag for his vellum journal, charcoal, and looking glass."
"And rosemary focaccia," he smiled.
We pedaled faster to where birds perched on the high wire.
"Why the line of steel hung in the sky for miles running?" he asked.
"An equator divides the globe, and a lightning bolt carries the news of feast and famine."
"And god-wars that ruin the planet."
I went riding with Leonardo today.
He drew many spoked wheels and flying machines.
"Fly with me!" I said "It's not your volo strumentale, or divine engineering of human flight,
but with arms outstretched we can glide hands-free."
Paired hawks quartered the countryside.
"Isn't it marvelous not having anything to do but play?"
"Across the great divide..."
"Maestro, why does her free smile enchant you so?"
"She is my child, brother, mother, father, sister, lover, aunt, and uncle, too,
the Mary of many and the Mary of none,
and the geranium if a white flower wore a face.
Mona Lisa is the breadth of space remaining after we've each taken our share.
She is what moves sitting silent,
the bright prism held within the rainbow,
listening and the telling,
the seed of thought and action,
the unborn babe I sketched by candlelight, asleep in the womb,
and the edge of darkness where moonlight illumines.
She is youth and decay, love and abandonment.
If ere I dreamed and loved I do evermore.
She is the greater giving and the evil hoard.
She is warm and sweet and fragile.
And that is why I love her.
For her fears spring from the grotto birthing mine.
I've been robbed a few times—Mona Lisa stays with me."
I went riding with Leonardo today.
He drew many spoked wheels and flying machines.
—G. Brunini
1 February 2021
| | |
| | |
Protest peacefully, VOTE, fall in love, run for office, raise a family which respects each color, race, or religion, and change the world... Summer 1968 / Summer 2020
| | |
| | |
IF SOUL WERE A COUNTRY
La bella Italia,
Land of cypress set in stone,
Jewel of the Mediterranean.
Before the shadows of night are gone,
Hold fast to the 'moon with a bite,'
For it will be made whole again.
Your spirit cannot be contained,
Come, walk into your garden,
We listen for your voice.
The evocative sequence of joy,
With the power of love's surprise,
So familiar, and treasured by all.
—G. B. Congdon, 22nd March 2020
The poem is dedicated with love to Bergamo, Italy where I have family. Prayers pour in from around the world during the pandemic, add mine. The kids play in Lucca's piazza in Tuscany, spring 2000. The "moon with a bite" is what Black Elk called the quarter moon.
Please watch Darika Montico's #ASCOLTA, #LISTEN:
| | |
| | |
ODE TO WINTER'S WORD
Were I mute, my pen would remain,
And my thoughts burst forth,
A folly of fireflies on an invisible skyline.
Were I deaf, old friend,
I'd endeavor to improvise like
An auctioneer of ideas both rarefied and asinine.
Were I blind, dear child within,
On you I would rely,
To ramble with elegant grace most Florentine.
Were I old, when once young,
I'd ask for humor,
To traverse the path both dulcet and serpentine.
Were I mortal and not divine,
I'd realize it's not a question of epiphany,
But rather the elusive patience to realign.
—G. B. Congdon
22nd February 2020
| | |
| | |
INTO THE WOODS
If my inner sanctum is where light falls softly,
And birds dart and play,
Then that is where we live.
If my inner sanctum is the backside of the moon,
And the sun a halo only,
Then that is where we dispel fear.
At life's meridian, in gray attire,
The maps and charts, drawn and examined,
I opened a drawer and found a labyrinth.
Something, finely drafted from antiquity,
With meandering paths of clipped box,
Where the signposts are writ in poetry.
I hold the missing chink in the mortar of my wall.
There is little in my day you do not share.
The sky is a vault of wonder everywhere.
—G. B. Congdon
14th January 2020
| | |
| | |
ODE TO NECESSITY
A light on the open meadow,
bends the wind on a marbled afternoon.
The threadbare woods, haunting in form,
render me tongue-tied.
And again, I see you, my fair-faced one,
writing words upon the blank universe.
Sipping from the cup of honesty,
you pierce the sea with virtue.
And singing in the shady grove,
your smile reaches to the crystal peak.
—G. B. Congdon
12th January 2020
Storms threaten, tease, gather, and push off. Winter 2020 is a visceral experience with change.
| | |
| | |
At the Vietnam War Memorial
That war was fought in their names too,
who preferred jail to jungle,
who would rather empty bed pans
than body bags, who said:
may we die alone in Canada
before melting a village
or burying a buddy's pieces.
Fought also in the name
of that soldier's father who cranked
my arm tight to my ear,
ground my face into the cement,
kicked repeatedly between my legs,
all because it was easier for him
to cut my hair than to open that dreaded letter.
Fought in her name too,
though she linked her arms with others
and lay as if dead in the streets,
the tanks rolled on through the rice paddies,
and on and on over the namelss.
—Jon Tabakin, 1993
Here's to the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock. As they say, "If you can remember, you weren't there." Jon is among those who can't remember, but LIFE magazine says he was—captured here in the lower right corner he wears orange foul weather gear. He does recall Joe Cocker singing the thunderstorm in, and Jimi Hendrix playing "The Star Spangled Banner" on his guitar with his teeth. The ticket covered three days and cost seven dollars.
| | |
| | |
LISTEN TO THE ROAR
Rolled and tumbled by passion's call,
my love, unlace your shoes,
lock your hands in mine.
Lay still, my love, breath to breath,
our heartbeats anchored,
and swim in the distance no longer.
We are home, where words spoken live
in three/quarter time,
and a kiss is an inkblot, a dimple on the moon.
The stuff of dreams and longing,
saved in summer's linen pocket,
you are an ocean at rest within me.
—G. B. Congdon 24th July 2019
Tide pools and starfish, sand dollars and purple urchin, since birth, summer was the Maine seacoast. Salt spray welcomed and crabs called out to me. On this blue orb that we call home, I will never feel more at peace than by the sea. Call out twice, if my head is bent, while I make a study of sand ripple patterns. An afternoon at the sea is both profound and recondite, and why we love it so.
| | |
| | |
Until We Kissed, That Is
How can a kiss shake the earth,
or cause time to stand still?
How can a kiss part the waters of a soul,
or call out with laughter to the stars?
I thought that was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we kissed, that is.
How can the gentlest kiss be a volcano
and blow the roof off of memory and longing?
How can fingers folded together and intertwined be tantric,
and coupling itself be within time and last forever?
I thought hat was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we lay together with your head on my chest.
How can a kiss make the wind blow through your hair,
and our bed turn into an ocean rising through the air?
How can a kiss cause a dog watching to try to speak,
or summon birds and turtles and bears and tears?
I thought that was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we kissed, that is.
—Jon Tabakin, 4th July 2019
Dedicated to Jo Brunini.
| | |
| | |