FIVE POEMS

By Rosemarie Crisafi

Every Night Ends

Every night ends small

with crickets, with pillows,

with a screech owl’s trill

in the presence of these spirits

Eyelids shut.

The windowpanes and walls

so mysterious

for an instant we ask

From where do the shadows come?

Which earthly stuff?

For who was the darkness intended?

We ought to have been included

with the evening primrose

yellow flowers unfolding

with the Luna moth

its green phantom wings

its round windows

and sashes of gold and blue.

In her ghostly mode

slowly she grows fainter and slowly,

slowly rises

in an enchanting performance

becoming certainty and sacred

scared energy.

Trembling in and out of view

and dividing into blackened boughs,

brightened, diffusing all moonlight;

even with the nightmares

brought upon us,

we survive the hits and misses of dawn

linger in the dimness of specters

hover in a stupor of dreams

until taken into blackness

as a train pulls so many cars

into a tunnel

the forgotten night

of each evening is infinite.

Clairvoyant

When I met you I turned into a psychic

previous to that I was a financial analyst.

I could predict what was going to happen:

Airline accidents

sea and land calamities

wars and global politics

earthquakes and floods

I foresaw it all

I wanted to marry you, but knew

it was not meant to be.

I knew you would make me

suffer.

Life was a string of movie trailers

in which all the films were disasters.

Does a healthy woman

think this way? I should earn points for my honesty.

I stood in the ring of sunlight by my telephone

and had a vision:

You would call and say it is over.

You would say you didn't love me.

You would wish me all the best

with sincerity.

I suppose now that if I had lacked these mental abilities

I would have been

a happier person. I was

a fine psychic.

I foretold the outcome of the presidential election.

I had the power of precognition.

One evening I dreamt

I drove past my mother’s house and glimpsed a man

cutting roses.

He is so proud of the bush, he cuts a small bud

and drops into a bathtub bursting with tiny blood red blossoms.

The dream never came true.

Now I am a bartender.

To Millbrook Mountain

I look for signs:

a distinctive stone face

a malformed tree

or an unusual curve.

On the thorny footpath

of scrub and cones.

red blazes

enclose the lake

all day and connect

blue stones

with a yellow trail to the mountain.

Holding the bottle

I consider the water.

It feels light. Still

I check the compass rose

note the pose of the sun

set the instrument’s housing.

Yes, the blade points north

Having done all that

I listen to paper wasps

and cellophane bees.

Their primitive vibrations

must be the sounds

of the moment,

not of forgetfulness

but rather the buzzing of one

with no memory.

I swear I hear the tones of satellites

as I climb,

as I track the colors.

Here, the carriage way

mounts.

Glacial rock floats

carried by ice, deposited

on a shelf far from its Arctic home.

Here, looking west,

sometimes the sun clarifies

a deep sea of evergreens

and at other times, reveals lavender ripples

in the cool mirror of Lake Minnewaska;

Today my boots stay

dry and dusty on a mat

bristling with needles,

bulging with roots.

The sky lake is what I wish

facts to be:

deep, lucid, elegant,

entirely reasoned,

replenished by rain from the air,

by springs and streams

coursing as always

from the earth.

Unpolluted and chaste

untouched by the ocean

unaffected by its tides’

always fluid and true.

Yes, you become clean

if you can swim.

The chains of pines have broken.

For centuries

stunted, they survive

in starved soil and high winds

outside the ravine.

The blackened ones

burned alive by thunderbolts.

Before rocky talus and mossy bogs

they live knotted

and twisted

near a gathering of giants.

Ancient hemlocks

meet in a ring of boulders.

Through late afternoon

the ravine divides the mountain

from Gertrude’s Nose.

Sharply the trail ascends

as blazes flash

between the toxic leaves and pink

bell petals of lambkill.

The evergreen shrub hides

behind polished fruit

of black seeded huckleberry.

Under an foliage awning

I cross a brook at a power line

that comes from nowhere

or perhaps from New York City

or even from heaven.

The cable enters the hollow,

as a long spear

falling downward

and waits, patient,

while a confused hiker

accepts the lash and surge

of the electric eel

In the west

glacial erratics balance

near  cliff edges.

Fractures yawn.

From within a crevice

a pitch pine grows

along an exposed ledge

with vertical drops

of some hundreds of feet.

The lake evaporates

and becomes a  legend.

It is not a matter of resiliency.

I explore unaided

propel my feet with care

with muscles and senses

within the range of my sight

far above the ground.

On a dangerous crag

unpainted rocks preserve

evidence of past upheavals:

great floods, volcanic cataclysms

primeval forests consumed by fires

---proof more lasting

than rainwater or trout.

END

Rosemarie Crisafi lives in Wappingers Falls, New York, USA. She works in White Plains, New York for a non-for-profit agency that serves individuals with disabilities. She is interested in literature and films. She enjoys the process of writing poetry. Currently, she has poems published online at Rock Salt Plum, Astropoetica and Experimental Poetry.com. Other poems have been accepted for future publication in Millers Pond, Tin Lustre Mobile, Ancient Paths, Poems Niederngasse and The Carriage House Review.