#9, 1992, The Villa of the Sun

#9, 1992, The Villa of the Sun

Crossing the Susquehanna, 

the Blue Mountains, ahead-- 

feeling my way, 

a rainy South greets me 

as the Sun is shining yonder, 

in Mississippi arriving at the Gulf, 

a bushel of peaches 

a bag of blueberries, 

an aqua, emeralded

sea, beyond

white sands squeaking

warm, friendly, lapping waves.

17.

Oh! green, green 

wave folding over 

into a gurgling surge, enveloping, 

Driving back to camp 

high in mountains, roadways

nearing the tops of pines--

a Western Tanager, unconcerned, 

flashes in the waning sun,

snagging a fly... 

a merging of Imagination

and things as they are--

tired, making a way to camp.

Trying to figure, the pines in shadows,

dancing in the fire’s light, 

amongst icy cold frightening stars, 

curling down and away 

inside a down bag, retaining a warmth.

“Adventures and Wonder”--

scrawled on my paint box, enthralled!

A turn towards Montana

brings a surprisingly early snow

propelling me on my way.

A big sky, cold with 

low grey ceiling of clouds, 

out on a splendidly lonesome road.

Tightening the box of paintings 

to the car’s roof for the trip ahead, 

driving and reading 

about a hurricane about 

to strike Miami, 

it will be in Long Island, 

as I approach home.

Barcelona Neck, these symbols, 

evaporating in a whirl 

of rope, pots, flowers burnt in the sun 

swallowed up into the sky

a grid appearing, the wall flaking

crumbles, starts to fall--

a fiction composed upon the wall.

25.

From muddled silhouettes 

to comic form,

the black and white depth, 

to Barcelona Neck’s clarity

an old stage is being cleared

objects flowing

their prolific meanings

past, like the same flowers

they change... die

as if, it all was once believed.

(“...but it got us through.”) emptied 

to be filled, once more.

A figure with walking stick, 

greeting the birds, 

appraising space, tipping his hat, 

painting in the sun, 

reading in front of the Sunflowers--

A desire, at this late hour.

I am struck by how fragmented my poem had become. The abstraction of the city and its demands upon me had created a want or need for the spaces I had discovered in the West. This escape was to become my life of the next 10 years. The last section here was more of what was to come, than any real concentration on the Villa imagery-- the faded, cracking, old fresco which I had dreamed would be the what I still dreamed of creating-- The Myth of America.