I Don't Know
how to sew sails
though
wind and water combine
to fill
the space I left off traveling for standing still
why some people
— I mean —
how the boat stays upright
how to say "this is it"
or why
I'm sitting
here not
anywhere else
(or not running for a train)
how large a radius exists drawing
close horizons
or how the ratio of time together
to time apart
compares with
the last dime
whether it was spent on getting home
if other people dream how information
flows
in and out
windows on 42nd street
and people
keep talking in order to stay alive
inside every bird one fact beats
a separate heart
the pigeon with one leg is the height
in feet of
the Chrysler building
how subtly the past catches
up with a
person and
if long ago acts
keep your doors locked at night
and how a person finds
rest
and if it's necessary
and where the sense went when it
left you
and how much we can save
(and also
where you are)
first day of spring
a turning
that pattern which somehow is
"the way it is"
23.5 degrees off
plane of orbit
an ellipse
the round about way
to turn and return
still
it's the first day of spring and
I have
no crops to plant no resurrection but life
itself which rises everyday and doesn't
need a nail
a winding cloth the stone pushed aside
it's like a last thing waiting to be said or
the last in line the way I am the
last to arrive back again at the starting point and every
year this route around the sun what
steadiness steadies us act out season
repetition
the forsythia blooms and I was young
the way the bush it was so big spilling over out of place
outrageous me embarrassed
such irrefutable visibility flush with life
but later
on the Jersey Turnpike
years later in a friend's car how I was surprised
he was still my friend him noticing
the way New Jersey
smells not bad but like forsythia
blooming by the highway
a yellow streak
highlights for the underbrush along
the fields and at the front gate
the brick laid path how warm it seemed
some one had taken the heart
of the matter and fit its pieces together
into a way to cross a yard enter
through an archway
mount the porch in one stride and peer inside
still it was that smell that brought him back
that and
his wheels
I never would have thought it could have been so easy going
home
being glad to go
Ekleksographia #2
July, 2009
Poems
Maya Funaro
Maya Funaro's poetry has appeared in Ology and her chapbook Setting in Motion is forthcoming from Fox Point Press. She is the recipient of several poetry prizes including the Mary M. Fay Award in Poetry. She has studied printmaking, bookbinding and letterpress printing in Providence, Bologna and New York and recently completed her MFA in poetry at Hunter College. She is a native of Southern New Jersey and currently lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, next door to Yucky the Cat.