Tag: change

Nearness

At our last home, on the side of a hill

the banter of neighbors was sometimes heard

yet dialogues were ever obscured

in mostly muffled, faraway words

Life’s so incredibly different here

in our small Salento town

where mostly open, shuttered doors

carry inside noises out

i’m an accidental eavesdropper

an undercover side-taker

unwittingly impacted

by next-door behaviour

hearing radios and tvs

and whistling when they’re pleased

hearing sobbing, hearing coughing

fret when angry, smile when laughing

happy medleys and cadenced words

a thundering thought, a mournful dirge

conveyed down narrow, cobbled streets

where public and private publicly meet

unwittingly entangled

emotionally ensnared

caught in the middle by an empathetic ear

learning to decipher our new life here

all the strong Italian voices

like a never ending opus

is how each day now greets us

amuses and entreats us

i hear the cafes open up

and people gather round

cafe bottles being rattled

day’s end shutters coming down

i hear dishes being done

and laundry being hung

i hear babies weep for mother

doggies barking at each other

there’s Magda, the parrot, in the center of town

the outdoor mass droning on and on

high heels click-clacking along the street

the town’s eery silence in the mid-day heat

i listen to people returning at night

parents and teens in ubiquitous fights

church bells and car horns, vendors in trucks

scooters and Api and loud motor bikes

i listen to people outside on their phones

as signals are zero inside their old homes

local curmudgeons talk sweet to the strays

old men with walkers bemoan better days

frequent fireworks, far too loud

are also now familiar sounds

though i prefer the young rapper below

filling the air with hip-hop flow

At first, the sounds unsettled me

hearing others’ lives weighed heavily

being covetous of my privacy

the introvert tried to take hold of me

yet I adapt as the weeks depart

the town’s special rhythm now beats in my heart

I’m comforted by a familiar voice

cheered by streets full of music and noise

i like to hear the telephones ring

i love to hear my neighbors’ sing

even the Tom cats’ pre-dawn brawls

seem to offer solace now

the more I listen every day

the strangeness of nearness gets further away

the closer i am and feel i belong

to Castrignano’s close-knit song

This House

This house

now weighs heavy on my heart

where once was light

we nurtured from the dark;

where when we moved ourselves

within these walls,

neighbors turned to friends

and friends turned all.

Where varied folk

met on this dusty road

and found a kinship

worth a weight in gold.

But years have passed

and seeds have scattered

and once things did,

but now don’t matter.

Cause when the world

was forced to shift,

what was once,

no longer fit.

And as the view

began to change

and i unchained

the new within,

these walls –

this world –

became a cage

guarded by a new found rage

of my own making.

And it started me thinking.

Now new worlds lie in wait.

My love and I

can feel the weight

lifting

and roots

shifting.

And this,

our beautiful home,

our past,

lovingly

and finally,

releasing.

Winged Chatter

I try to find a new way to wander across the rolling hills of scrub and pine and stretches of grass each time the dogs and I go walking

So every day, I get to see familiar things in a different sort of way.

Sometimes this leads to new treasures like old, sun-bleached bones for my growing bone collection,

a newly dug den with earth so freshly excavated it’s still moist and brown;

an ancient juniper at the top of a ridge, rounded like a giant, perfect mushroom cap, where generations of cattle resting and rubbing in its shade, helped make its flat-bottomed, fairytale shape.

But mostly, it’s not knowing where the dogs and I are going,

except out

to explore this small patch of hilly land near home

where Mingus Mountain rises behind Chino Valley to the east, Table Top Mesa and Granite Mountain command the views to the south,

and scattered homes along long, dirt roads in the near distance remind us we’re never alone.

As does the jackrabbit springing from shrub to shrub, with its skyscraper ears that quickly disappear,

and a flock of quails lifting noisily from an impenetrable cluster of Apache Plume, in near perpetual bloom, at the side of the wash.

Which, like my path, is always changing.

Crumbling.

Reshaping.

Exposing tunnels dug below the surface

(that look like sunken eyes, sunk deep in deep, dark sockets);

and hardened roots of Pinyon pines clutching eroding walls,

refusing to fall,

to succumb to the changes.

Green clinging on so few branches.

Yet clinging.

And fruiting

and feeding the creatures who live in the washes and brushes and hollowed out trees;

in the boulders and burrows and fields, where me and the dogs keep wandering, because every day it keeps changing.

Each bloom.

Each moon.

Each orbital click.

While the dogs keep on sniffing and sniffing and sniffing, and finding their own unique way, which these days is through a grassy stretch of fleeting monsoon green that tickles my knees and their noses.

Past Prickly Pears with their thorny pads, crowned with green, pink and purple fruit, growing darker and bigger and bolder and sweeter.

Across the grass where the air is fair and the land is electric with tiny, winged voices that buzz here and there.

Humming strange, chatty words in my ear.

While modest patches of yellow, white, orange and purple wildflowers barely boast that they’re there.

But they are.

And so are we.

Blossoming.

Buzzing.

Changing.

Done is Done

Away they go,

one by one.

Change is change.

Done is done.

Years go by.

Wrinkles arrive.

Needs and wants

don’t always jibe.

Some folk never get enough.

Give too little.

Troubled trust.

Throw that bond

right under the bus.

Time no longer shelters “us”.

Those who once

were all as one.

Away they go.

And done

is done.