My baroceptors are playing up again
I try to gather in the last weeks but cannot
my head like yours too full of lists
which rather than get ticked disperse
1. place poem books in robust shoppers
neath the vertical calm of late may rain
this works fine until I find a letter from you
in the copy of Scrins you sent me from Rome
when our sons were very young
and you were hopelessly drawn
to the snow-bound pensione in Villetta Barrea
2. check emotional bandwidth
will it bear the heart's identifiable tunes
and the worthless code
which says that spring finally will kick in
though it might be early summer
or a hint of searing autumn yet to come
only now it's July in Valverde
where we actually live and
(3.) succumb to the importance of written light
the spinal crumple of dense green foothills
as early each morning I groove my way down to town
beyond this crisp back lit ridge
the city's livelihood seems as if whisked away
in a keenly expressed vitality of abstention
capitalising on the calm that wells inexplicably up in me
as I swerve jolt and bound
the caked on asphalt breached
forms hill scar tissue
the crops stay still
the valley slowly rotates
Valverde July 2008