a lost world's weather

8/17/2019 A Lost World's Weather

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a lost world’s weather

John Martone

samuddo / ocean 2016


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a lost world’s weather copyright © 2016, John Martone

samuddo / ocean: 978-1-365-08777-6 [email protected]

http://www.lulu.com/shop/john-martone/a-lost-worlds-weather/paperback/product-22674896.htmlhttp://www.lulu.com/shop/john-martone/a-lost-worlds-weather/paperback/product-22674896.html


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a lost world’s weather


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under the stone-agetypewriter uplifteddusty cicadas


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feel this cicadamolt all around — too smallyou had no idea


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painting those blueflowers exactlya nun prays


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solitude —you count every window in the fresco


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just the placefor that shipwreck picture —you crack the plaster


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the shadows a shaker chaircasts in sunlight morestructure than you know


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night radio fromyour home island crackling a lost world’s weather


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the fig tree doesn’tmake a sound — you don’t needa second language


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you unfolda map of the worldunder that fig tree


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struggle with houseboundold limbs getting this pottedfig tree in the shower


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snowbound in old agethose boyhood summers lostin glinting mica


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model trawleron the shelf — and winter crowsoutside out of scale


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thank you anothermorning to walk ona bare floor


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you turn its glazed potand the jade plant alreadyknows what you mean


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new year’s snow on that thai buddhathe teaching mudra


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a hawk’s white breastin the bare oak —rain freezing at dusk


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sun through that keyholein the pines dailynow we’ve no secrets


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zig-zag beetle pathunder the bark and yourcranial sutures


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sun breaking through20-below — haven’t gottendrunk in years


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that last wintermother hanging your windchimegift inside — the light


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eating walnutsthis winter really turninginto father


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coin clatters down —today you light a bluevotive candle


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just as you are just as you are lighting thisvotive candle —


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winter mice have movedinto that cardboard box mybirdnest collection


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they lived centuriesin a stone village but youbecame a spaceman

(thinking of il commune di Frigento) Avellino)


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all the deaths behinda life lost again in suchcounting — new year’s rain


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glass bowlof lentil soupanother lens


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books stacked by empty red chaira tall lamp sheddinglight on the fig tree


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roots tapped freestill keep the clay pot shapeit’s not right


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couldn’t recallthe plant’s name — we’re only human — hens-and-chicks


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(from Calvino)

you speak a language fig tree — lemon — seashore — butnot the one you think


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lens in hand draw cellby cell a fig leaf in suna map of pompeii


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cold night’s dream ofspinnakers billowing dawn’shills covered in snow


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they’re all bodilesson the shortwave tonightrushing past Dante


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watching redbirds nestoutside your room you becomeanother pine branch


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frigid night back ofshabby rooms — moon behind cloudsthis trash can’s empty


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the mouse trembling on snowpack suddenly last autumn’s leaf


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snow swirling in throughthe door shut sparkling allyou remember


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black-capped chickadeein subzero come out ofnowhere there’s plenty


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chest cramps now after so muchyesterday


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fantastic citiesfrom that dream return as youchop through morning ice


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switches dials metersvacuum-tube shortwaveuseless in sunlight


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sun climbs above treesand fills your roomthe door has panels


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grandma Rochellehands you a tie-clasp from Naplesthen everything’s dark


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you watch them go outhere there and never come backvotive candles too


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wearing long-johnsyou peel a tangerinenote the symmetry


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a brand newpocket knife to openthis purple onion


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small birds navigatea pine’s inner space — the sky’severywhere boundless


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light filters through deepsnow into your solitudedormant azalea


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that crow againcaws from white roof to white skyyou’re still inside


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an oak tree clutchesits leaves — sycamores clawthe whitening sky


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roof-top crows and doveson gerard hopkins’ sunday —shotguns in hills


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part-way upspring beauties

just waiting


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st. francis and buddhaside-by-side on the tablethus you hear sparrows


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deep downsnail shell — then yourpocket’s empty


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and isn’t it strange we never met


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seeing out — no floaters this oncebright wall kitchen clockthat cleanliness beyond you


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you’ve run out of wordsthe jade plant makes a waterfallthe green lobes listen


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it only gets colder nowand you never learnedhow to swim


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how didthis glassget stained

that onlyheld water


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a lost world's weather

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