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
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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.