USA

rferrarelli@earthlink.net 

The Wild Oats Stand 
Almost Perfectly Still

unmoved by sea or inland breeze
and we had come looking for some respite
from ourselves hoping the sea breeze
would lift the heaviness between us
too much togetherness or two little
who knows
                         but just as here
things we never noticed before
suddenly important or at least
to be reckoned with
and everything looks shabby, long neglected,
this cottage we've rented on and off
for over fifteen years
I'm bothered by the freezer
that's always been too small and leaky
the vinyl sofa, not having four plates, four
glasses that match, four cups
that aren't chipped or stained
things I never minded when the breeze
blew through the house from back to front
and across the screened porch.
We realize for the first time
there are seasons within the season.
What worked right by accident
an act of will, now.
The knots in the pine paneling are bleeding
and I wonder if it's always been like this
or it that's new
like the airconditioner.

First appeared in Pendulum.

Beachcombing  for Wholeness

in the fragments
and discards of the sea
for beauty in the small.
Clam, ark and razor
shells, coquinas
and scallops seldom perfect.
No whelks or cowries.

Taking in the even landscape
bland as a diet.
Shell of ocean unbroken
stretches of sand
speckle like rough-woven linen
wind-pliant grass-covered dunes.

The sound of water constant
and never jarring,
soothing--muffled
by the surf
the gull's shriek
quickly dissipates
under the light grey sky.

Before the shaman sun
we anoint our bodies
and slowly turn under its healing breath
till every fragmenting crystal is drawn out.

Gradually,
our cares leave us,
and even last night seems faraway--
the cruelty of sandcrabs
popping in the fire,
our child's hurt,
and the raucous jeering laughter
that followed him home.

We feel whole.  We are the world
and the world
that white-sailed catamaran.

At the far end by the pier
sandpipers go in and out in and out
with the waves.

Later, we make neighbors
of new acquaintances around an evening
bonfire, talk sing, tell ghost stories.

A young girl plays a melody
on her flute, and the yellow-crimson flames
high above our heads
lap up the darkness.  The moon is a bone
tossed at the dogs of night.

First appeared in Images.

Waiting Outside the Wright  Brothers
          Memorial Museum

I seem to be breaking some kind of unspoken
law, sitting here on the cool ground,
in the shade of the building, propped up
against the wall, legs bent like a child,
aching head on my knees, eyes half-shut
watching the door.  The backless benches
are in the sun or inside where it's frigid.
All shades and shapes go in and out.  Skinny
shins, pitted thighs, fat buttocks.  I think
I just saw Mr. Ex-All-American
and Mrs. Ex-Cheerleader go in.
A little heavy now, but still attractive.
How average-looking we all are
in our poplins and knits and bright summer
colors.  And how polite.  People pretend
not to see or look quickly away.
A tow-headed little boy in a purple
shirt goes by laughing, turns to stare. Only
the old men are hesitant.  Their gaze
soft with sympathy.  A light breeze from
the ocean seeps through the shimmering heat.

First appeared in Poetry Now.

On the Outer Banks
     To the Wright Brothers

And life sometimes is on the fringes
a fringe of sandbanks  strung along the coast
what relief there is made by human hands
shapes of work   shapes of leisure

blending with the pebbles and coarse brown sand
you plover your way in and out
constant motion one way to survive

or you forget about all that:
singleminded about your needs
you incubate your dream in a drafty barn
until it grows wings
then watch it rise above the low landscape
soar higher than gull and sea hawk.

First appeared in Dark Horse.

A Gathering Quietness

Sitting quiet and still
this hot July afternoon,
cool in the breeze from the ocean
that crosses the porch on the diagonal,
feet up, facing the dunes.

The duck whirligig on the neighbor's house
blusters away, clackety-clack,
stuck on its pole, neck straining,
wings pumping furiously.

I can't hear the waves,
only the wind.
A giant dragonfly pauses on the screen
then takes off again,
wings barely visible in the strong light.

The  Little Mermaid, transformed,
had dragonfly wings
in a book I had as a child.
Beautiful, diaphanous,
they've kept her aloft in my head
all these years.  And soaring still,
as well, the word for dragonfly.
Libéllula lifted right off the page
and out the window it flew.
Che dolce  far niente!
I feel no compulsion to move,
no compulsion to do.

The slender sea oats,
whole fields of them, bend
the way the wind is going,
in unison, motion itself,
while below the surface,
sink deeper into the earth.

I spin a cocoon of quietness
inside of me.

First appeared in Tar River Poetry.

October

1.
The sky, bluest in the north,
a blue unalloyed with grey,
and a clear direction.

Soon the woods too
will achieve clarity, bony
in crisp biting air, in riches of light
and the leaves will steep in the gutters
scenting the air with tannin.

On the far hills
flocks of birds swirl above the trees
settle, take off again horizontally
as if not quite sure it's time to go.

2.
There were no trees to tell the seasons
on the streets of my childhood,
there were no seasons like this one.

The leaves' inner core exposed,
the trees blaze crimson and yellow,
casting a glow
over the grey stone pavement.

And in the light of leaves,
Mr. Mayer, a neighbor I've always liked
for no particular reason,
a man I don't know too well,
comes around the corner
leaning back at the end of a taut leash,
a brown and white sheep dog
pulling at the other end.

His pleasant open face
reminds me of someone, his smile
reaching into the past
like a rope I've held, let go,
picked up again.
I tug and tug
until my father,
buried in October when I was not there,
comes into view,

not young as he's always been
in the warm south of memory
but old as he would be now
face lined and darkened by the sun
and smiling,
                but weary too
thick hair white like Mr. Mayer's
and like him resisting the pull.

3.
One shallow grave,
two wandering souls.

Forty years after
my father meets me halfway.

But how, how can I bury him
if when I do
he'll die all over again.

"I forgive you," my father says,
in English, a language he never knew.

First appeared in Laurel Review.

All of them were collected in
Home is a Foreign Country  (Eadmer, '96).

© All Copyright, 1996, Rina Ferrarelli.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.