Poems by Patricia Fargnoli

photo by John Hession

Blue Mountains in Rain

by Patricia Fargnoli

From Canary Fall 2010

Patricia lives in a small village of white houses near the border of New Hampshire and Vermont, in the Connecticut River watershed where Cold River runs into the larger river and Fall Mountain hovers in the near distance.

We hide in our houses and listen at the windows
  so many of us listening alone
to the ticking on the trees,
      so many watching
the shawl drop down over the hills,
  hiding the hills that circle around us
surrendering to the rain
      the clouds that fall apart over them--

the unbreaking fall-apart clouds
that parachute down into the trees,
falling into the forests,
sweeping over the bodies of sleeping animals--

for thousands of years the rain.
For thousands of years we've been standing like this,
almost in dream, watching
the blue shawl of rain float down over the circle of hills.

© Patricia Fargnoli

Encounter

by Patricia Fargnoli

From Canary Winter 2010-11

The village lights extinguished one by one
and something moved ahead of me on the walk,
some night time scavenger out to quench desire.

I drew back as it shambled across my path,
entered the garden and disappeared
beneath hostas and lemon balm.

Skunk? Possum? I might have put a name to it.
In truth, it was only shadow. I waited by the door
but it had gone beyond me.

No one is completely alone in the world--
the animal, whatever it was, and I made two of us.
The quickening of our bodies in response to each other,

the backing off, even the disappearance was part of it.
Now, somewhere beyond even this memory,
a small mammal forages through its ordinary life

and here, my own body desires, not the startle,
but the moment after, the connection I felt then.
With these words, I reach toward it.