46


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