ekleksographia wave two

Blue in Green

                          Kind of Blue, Miles Davis

Dark throated shooting stars growing wild.
0r the field behind Matisse's dancers, glowing
like a noon sky that stills all turbulence—that blue is, I think,

the color of loss, the spaciousness
beyond fractal trees in winter.

Like white flame the Cathedral spires
plunge the night sky into its deepest sapphire, deep
as sorrow at 1:00 AM, deep

as the green of new wheat in a field
where a wren teeters on a mustard weed green
as the boy riding his bicycle to first love before the next
and the next, the chrome spokes of his wheels zinging across the meadow.

He will fall. I am tired of knowing it.

But hear the bird singing as it sways on its flimsy stalk,
Miles' muted horn, what it knows.

---

Girosole

          after a dance concert, Spoleto, Italy

The pas de deux had ended.
             and no one died after all. The night was impossibly tender.
                                                Moonlight eddied through the valley

while a few stars pinged against the sky.
               Others whirled, unseen.

In the morning, all over Italy, sunflowers would wake up
              their faces following all day the sun's east—west arabesque. Silly children.

For tonight, the square was just coming alive and festive—
                                                 such a hum: lovers and children
                                                                   grandparents and dogs.

After a while, silence, into which anything might fall. Then,
                                                 4 AM. Matins. A rooster crowing.

Ekleksographia:
Wave Two

November, 2009

Poems

• Blue in Green
• Girosole

Anne Pitkin

Anne Pitkin is the author of two poetry collections: Notes for Continuing the Performance and Yellow. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Poetry, Praire Schooner, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The New Orleans Review, Rattle, and many others. Her collection, Accidental Music, currently seeking a publisher, has been a finalist in a number of manuscript contests. Editor emeritus of Fine Madness, an international poetry magazine published in Seattle, Ms. Pitkin is a jazz pianist in her spare time.