Poems by John Tessitore
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Metamorphosis
by John Tessitore
From Canary Spring 2021
John lives in the SuAsCo Watershed, feeding the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers. There are a few hopeful signs that this cradle of American literature, and of revolution, is finding its voice again, in the howls of returning coyotes and the nocturnal scream of the fisher cat.
The rattlebone branches of the maples
are tapping their skeletal rhythm, as the lilac
sighs its burgeon magenta, as the peaking
azalea hums like an engine, as the cardinal
sings with a cantor’s precision.
I rake the mulch of winter to a midden,
a buried mosaic of broken shells,
intentions hidden in soil, in time forgotten,
yet someone here once paid attention
to structure, to the marrow if not the nacre.
So here I will till with my grub hoe and trowel,
split the tamped surface and sift the compost
from my kitchen. Every peel, core, eggshell
adds a grain of texture, tilth to support
snow peas and peppers, heirloom tomatoes.
In this spring of severed connections
we will have leafy greens, yellow blooms, bees,
rangy vines that reach for the sunrise
and roots that burrow down through tiny shards
of oyster stolen from the sea, scraped
from the bottom of a bay. And nothing
will be wasted anymore, not the worm
in its labyrinth, not the pill bugs that molder,
not the spider’s web, and not the vineyard
that ripens by the woodshed—grape hyacinth.
© John Tessitore