dust from a garden

dust from a garden

John Martone

samuddo / ocean
2017
My thanks to the editors of Akitsu
Quarterly, Blythe Spirit, Hedgerow,
Hummingbird, Modern Haiku, and
Presence for publishing some of
these poems.

Copyright 2017 by John Martone

dust from a garden
 for Giselle

Ma vedi Eno che l diriva:

menalo ad esso, e come tu se usa,
la tramortita sua virt ravviva.

Dante, Purgatorio xxxiii, 127-129.

another calendar page
a cicada molt
clings to the pine
Purple finch
in the lace-leaf maple
now I see

~8~
Different sides
of the house

different color
morning glories

~9~
The old mans room
Ungaretti
in a slip case

~ 10 ~
Just
risen

from sleep
which

way
does this

book
open?

~ 11 ~
Wind keeps blowing
the book back
to this page

~ 12 ~
Basil drying
on my clothesline
cleanliness itself

~ 13 ~
An intricate
morning

folding
my laundry

~ 14 ~
The map unfolded
every color lichen
on the tree

~ 15 ~
Morning glories
climb the grafted
apple branch

~ 16 ~
Lace-leaf maple
ablaze with dew

the aphid
translucent

~ 17 ~
A caterpillar
in the tomatoes

the boy wears

coke-bottle glasses

~ 18 ~
They x-ray
my hands
I cant
stop talking

~ 19 ~
Weeping cherry branches
I hardly notice
the fence

~ 20 ~
Sun just-so
goldfinch through
silver maple

~ 21 ~
Layers of sunlight
a garden-frames
late lettuces

~ 22 ~
The old mans fingers
just as twisted
lace-leaf maple

~ 23 ~
Suddenly autumn
tossing my room in search of
Empedocles

~ 24 ~
Old nursery man
surprised I know
the classics

~ 25 ~
Glaucomas next stage
autumn geese have
bigger wings

~ 26 ~
Where shed hold on
the garden swings
deeper rust

~ 27 ~
Dust from the garden
blown into my bedroom
mothers picture

~ 28 ~
Falling asleep
in my clothes the smell
of cedar mulch

~ 29 ~
Autumn sparrows
every direction
a quilt on my bed

~ 30 ~
A watercolor paint-box
untouched in the larger
box of his things

~ 31 ~
No idea
its a column of light
garden mite

~ 32 ~
The reading glasses
come off and he speaks
his own language

~ 33 ~
This autumn sun
a bagworm in the pine
above St. Francis

~ 34 ~
Another leaf-fall
Joan of Arc blazes up
in an old movie

~ 35 ~
The time of life when
things can only go wrong
his overnight bag

~ 36 ~
I fret over bonsai
arborists climb
the fall maples

~ 37 ~
Getting to see
the river while crossing
a crowded bridge

~ 38 ~
Pubescent laughing
their last hide-and-seek
in the leaf-fall

~ 39 ~
All these years
the other world
an empty swing

~ 40 ~
Milkweed pods
at the trails edge a woman
full of worries

~ 41 ~
Harvested fields
the fence wire sags
under a hawk

~ 42 ~
Something new
a wood fence around
the family graveyard

~ 43 ~
No thicker
than your wrist
a dogwood

~ 44 ~
Long fingers
of flowering basil the young
mother wears white

~ 45 ~
Stubble fields
the old man in overalls
shorter now

~ 46 ~
Punctuation
marks a fall
house mouse

~ 47 ~
Acorns dropping
from my neighbors oak
the morning mapped-out

~ 48 ~
Pushing falls
fallen leaves aside I
pick the lettuce

~ 49 ~
The summer fan
put away room for
my fig tree

~ 50 ~
A hickory nut
splits open the shell makes
four petals

~ 51 ~
Morning glories
with purple guidelines
escape the garden

~ 52 ~
A daddy-long-legs
shadow races
out of mine

~ 53 ~
safe for now
on a hill above the lake
caddis fly

~ 54 ~
Vacant houses
all around the woodpecker
chooses my wall

~ 55 ~
Pumpkin field
the family
in a trailer

~ 56 ~
There will be
bread and oil
coffee and a cigarette

~ 57 ~
Srray cat
the shed door wont
shut tight

~ 58 ~
Cold Spring Harbor
the willows and high
tide just touch

~ 59 ~
More rain
the autumn hills
every color of water

~ 60 ~
Churchbells at dusk
a flock of birds
turns as one

~ 61 ~
No clear path
house-wren deep in
lace-leaf maple

~ 62 ~
That thrum of wings
my childhood
flipbook

~ 63 ~
Slowly autumn
the lace-leaf maples
inner form

~ 64 ~