reflection: spare crop / fleet mind
It is the thing that lies under
under lies
below the foundation
like a time signature
signalling in silence:
there
there
there
there
we are.
È la cosa che sta sotto
sotto stante.
sotto il fondo.…….
come il tempo quaternario
segnalando in silenzio
ci……..
ci……..
ci……..
ci……..
siamo.
Every stone bears the memory of water
within its mineral bones
time stamped with the fluid trace
of a flickering-blind magnetic north.
21 March 2020, Lombardia, Italia
everything stilled
the world has stopped
a spring
crowned with silence.
On the occasion of the municipality posting a letter asking people to pay their cemetery dues
Boxes of disremembered bones
expatriated into/out of locus
sad berth
the heartbreak of a January
blossoming cherry.
Paranoia
Her eyes slide to the side
like a Sienese saint
Painted by the brothers who died in the plague
back when there were 100 stories to tell
while bodies rotted,
left where they fell.
Escape into a place where
we can’t smell
we can’t feel
we can’t fear
But she’s convinced it’s coming:
selfie snapping
facial mapping
the lost weekend
the bottom
of the barrel.
Her hair is like a flag,
like an olive branch,
distinguished by its colour,
(unique but the same,
as so many others),
flapping in the wind
fruitlessly offering
peace.
This evening’s fresh clouds burst, Scattering across the asphalt a handful of rain’s unseasonable black confetti.
A jug of wine,
No loaf.
No thou.
I feed among the lilies of this resplendent sky.
One year when the awakened plane trees
find themselves struck yellow in the night,
there will be nothing left of me but
a memory in your hands as they pull
wet laundry from the spun drum or
open the window’s case –
inviting October’s last, warm breath
to communicate the dust
between one room
and another.
by Bonnie McClellan
This was first posted in May of 2013.
The mountains are on fire with clouds,
burning wet they billow up,
choking the spaces between the trees.
I hear the ticking of two clocks.
Furrowing through the valleys
fat white engulfs the state road,
levelling even the bell tower’s lopsided stones.
The crackling ash of rain stops.
Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 