The Stationary Traveler

           I have to remember everything,
	   keep track of the blades of grass, the threads
	   of the untidy event, and
	   the houses, inch by inch,
	   the long lines of the railway,
	   the textured face of pain.
				-Pablo Neruda
1
  dark farewell

I looked for you on the hill
but saw only bridal veil
hugging the fence
like a cluster of stars
demanding nothing
but its own illumination

2
  the confusion

What is misunderstood
is the beaker of light
reeking of rain
floating through sleep
in a cross-hatch of such shadows
that the light is indistinguishable
from the scar that dims sunlight
against the frail skin of the dream,
far too sensitive for knives of enlightenment.

What is misunderstood
is the beaker of light
floating through sleep.

It is taken for a dark flower
between moon and sun,
a deadly nightshade in full bloom,
eclipsing everything
that is both bright and clouded

3
  meditation (on light)

slant of light through maples
sparks the heels of childhood dance
darkens the corridor of the dream
ignites the moth’s aura into
feverish spirals of white
amid the blurred beating
of porous wings
directionless maps
leading nowhere
but inward-

the eternal wake
the self-portrait no one sees

4
  the blessing

Spanish jazz
on the hot night
and I think of you
in the ghetto 
touching me.

You said,
Has bendicido el palpitar
de mi corazon
con tus ojos.

5
  serenade beneath the shadow of the dream

Clouds in a caravan of shredded sky
move motionless against direction.

I come from the mountains like wind,
like mercury,
tambourines rattling in my eyes,
men with guitars
painting the night orange, green, silver.

My earrings flash in moonlight,
round wands of magic,
glass lightning illuminating your face,
dancing tambourines in your eyes,

a serenade of dark men with black hair
in bright wagons.
And I hand you the plan
we cannot touch-

to love like the sea
and yet like a raindrop.

6
  returning

The dew electrifying the fields
is quick to burn
and certain,
yet returns
with each new birth of the moon.

***

John L. Stanizzi’s books are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After The Bell, Hallelujah Time!, HighTide-Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, Sundowning, POND, The Tree That Lights The Way Home, Feathers and Bones. Besides Rabid Oak, John’s poetry has appeared in American Life in Poetry curated by Ted Kooser, The New York Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Passages North,and lots more. His work has been translated into Italian and appears widely in Italy. His translator is the Italian scholar, Angela D’Ambra. His nonfiction has been published in Literature and Belief, Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, Potato Soup Journal, after the pause, and others. A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, John has been an adjunct Professor of English, Manchester (CT) Community College for 26 years, while teaching full time at Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT. In 1998, he was named The New England Poet of the Year by The New England Association of Teachers of English. In 2021, John received a grant in Creative Writing-Non Fiction from the State of Connecticut Commission on Arts and Culture. He lives in Coventry with his wife, Carol.