Margaret Saine

 

 

(USA)

 

 

 

Garden

 

Outside the window

my garden Is Is Is

nothing but is

I leave it alone

I let it be

let it grow to become

a savage wilderness

of birds and butterflies

 

Air free to breathe

the air of a garden

growing with green

in big voluptuous gulps

 

Twigs shoot up

leaves fling themselves

sidelong

and fall in free fall

to the ground

 

Sun and moon

take a visiting look

and smile their approval

 

Garden

always right here

at home

and Garden

always far

always the hope

of a garden

expecting us

everywhere

 

One thing all humans share

is the love of gardens.

 

 

 

Love Across the Divide~~ On Being in Rome

 

Confess no more lag

I’m in your time zone now (and adjust my computer)

 

The new and the old

–formerly lying

like sleeping dogs– invade me

 

like a mass a madrigal a symphony

 

And off my tongue roll noises out into the street Via dei Serpenti Roma the cult of always speaking in tongues:

EU-ropa– is it really

a good one?

 

The story of a love the story of a life a story of life itself lived between flame

and cold storage

 

 

 

Clouds   #2

 

There is no flat, there is no straight

when clouds take over the sky

their lush curves caress my eyes

as they dance by twists and turns

they budge and bulge

they loom and lumber

I breathe them with delight

 

Their vapors sag in swelling pillows

in puffy cloud bank sofas

streaked a soft crosshatch shade

[I had a sofa like that once]

 

Their hovering punches jut up

ice grey in heavy fists but sink

into plodding puddings until

they jettison their liquid ballast

 

Now their color mutes into white

now a creamy, shiny buttery hue

pristine and indirectly bright

a fallen snow on the horizon

a slant of sunlight shining through

 

 
 

Moving Company

 

I poeti muovono parole   Silvana Puschietta

 

Like big fluffy clouds

poets huff and puff

when they move

big words onto the

moving truck called poem

 

Among the standard

pots and pans

of assonance and alliteration

 

poets roll out delicate

monosyllables

like Persian carpets

 

Homespun lacy curtains

of chiaroscuro

are window dressing

hanging from the rafters

 

Poets cartwheel images

embedding them in place

and once in a while

 

like a big elephant

surges a grand piano of

indelible assertion

 

But most of all just clouds

float in, above and by

around the moving wagon

 

The unsaid

the leftover

the inexpressible

are left by the wayside

 

 

writing always writing

tiring and alerting

exhilarating

I’m the one

who is writing

you

deeply into my lap

while my heart is leaping

at your contact

 

sleeping windows

their pale and dark

eyes

looking neither in nor out

dreaming

in a suspense

of light and shadow

night and day

waiting for sunrise

 

Amazing words

writes the

reader

thanking the

poet

How can it be?

The poem is

translated!

Whose words

The poet’s or

The translator’s?

I would say

Both

 

a door or a sigh

exit into eagerness

of going away

eager for life

in pink

or orange

taking place on the fringe

slapping you or giving

a tender kiss

 

une porte et un soupir

la sortie d’envie

aller

l’envie de la vie

rose ou orange

qui a lieu sur la frange

te claquant une gifle

ou un tendre baiser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________

 

Margaret Saine taught French and Spanish at universities in California and now lives in Los Angeles and Rome. She writes poetry, haiku, and short stories in five languages, also translating other poets. Her books in English are “Bodyscapes,” “Words of Art,” “Lit Angels,” and 5 haiku chapbooks, plus several manuscripts to be published. She has recently completed “As You Were Saying,” a dialogue with American poet William Carlos Williams, and for exercise writes 140-keystroke poems.