Here are three of my poems, published on Bridle Path Press this week. This sampling of three will be included, along with many other new poems, in my forthcoming poetry chapbook: Time's Mirrored Illusion.
The Ghosts of Indian Maidens
Today a pinecone and a feather
together with an acorn blessed my path
among the lush, dense trees.
Beneath the oak, tiny Indian pipes
glow ghostly white—an absence of chlorophyll—
perhaps they’re wraiths reincarnated
sprouting near wild chicken mushrooms.
In the shade and shadow
of sable patches of overgrowth
the rocks overrun, untidy with moss
imaginably a former sacred place
where in times past Indian maidens
bled at their time of the month,
where women birthed babies
on snow-scattered forest duff
and where now I walk
to find solitude and stillness.
Out on the road to Red Hawk,
the mutable leaves on the trees
that line the road burst and boast
displaying brash colors:
butternut squash, winter plum
blossoms, and Chinese apples.
One tree sports the bi-colors of fresh
lychee skin or a sun-reddened peach.
In this breathless beauty, the wind,
a canticle, arises to twirl my thoughts
to the capricious whims of nature:
cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons
and just as the last leaf cleaves
to the bough, oh, how we, too,
cling and clutch ferociously to life.
“In the Keep of This Rainy Morning” after Raymond Carver
I walk into McMmillen’s Fine Art Photography shop
to buy some cards of local spots here in the mountains.
I choose three. McPolin barn in winter, the same barn
in late summer, one of the bridge over a creek of winter-
runoff behind the barn in spring. Hanging on the wall
in back of the card stand, there’s an old barnwood rough-
framed photograph of that very barn in autumn rainfall.
I recall another setting of rain. Beneath a soft, shadowy sky,
rain falls intermittently upon Mexican roof tiles, splashing
onto the stained glass bedroom window, glistering leaves,
as sequins on a gown. I know exactly how Raymond Carver
felt writing the poem “Rain.” So no, I won’t run home
to the computer and belt out a story, or hope for a visit
from the muse to dash off slant rhyme, imperfect, half,
oblique or any other. Instead, I’ll puff up the pillows,
turn on the light, push my glasses up the bridge of my nose
and read a novel, hoping for inspiration insinuated
and isolated between words as the wind blows
the hanging plants and the rain taps a melody
on the porch outside my window.
The Colorful Horsehead Nebula —for J.-C. Cuillandre & G. Anselmi
As an angel, floating through the sky, I’m always getting
into trouble traversing the Universe when I should be taking
care of lost souls. But it sure was worth it, when
on October 7, 2003, I inspired two astronomy professors
to take a telescopic lens in hand and photograph me riding
bareback on the magnificent horse in Orion’s Nebula.
Of course when the photo was displayed later, I was
invisible—nowhere to be seen. Still, I know those men felt
appreciative, awed by the intensity of light I tossed their way,
through the interstellar dust clouds of my domain.
They thrilled to obtain such an incredible image—
my presence, prodding, signaling, waving from 1,500 light
years away. Since then I sometimes do a fly by over Hawaii
to say, aloha, but they’re too busy to notice, and I’m usually
on the run, dashing fast hither and yon just out of the super-
angelic feathery reach of Saint Michael the Archangel,
my dearest, pure custodian’s grasp to yank me by the ear,
calling me to task, nudging me back to brass tacks, to guide
wayward retuning spirits through dark molecular clouds.
What these earthling photographers fail to realize is
I’ve latched on to a neat trick—leaving some soul essence
to appear as an even larger powdery veil now and then
in my favorite Horsehead Nebula of Orion. Hurray!
for all astronomers and three cheers for wayward angels!
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became
sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly
named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast complex Orion Nebula.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is catalogued as
Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the
bright emission nebula IC434. "
--J.C. Cuillandre and G. Anselmi
Nina Romano has authored four poetry collections: Cooking Lessons from Rock Press, Coffeehouse Meditations, from Kitsune Books, Faraway Confections from Aldrich Press, She Wouldn’t Sing at My Wedding from Bridle Path Press. She has published one chapbook, Prayer in a Summer of Grace, from Flutter Press. Romano has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She co-authored Writing in a Changing World. Her debut short story collection, The Other Side of the Gates, is forthcoming from Bridle Path Press, and two new poetry chapbooks, Time’s Mirrored Illusion and Westward: Guided by Starfalls and Moonbows, are forthcoming. More about the author at: www.ninaromano.com.
