Saint John’s Tide
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Give your darkness over to the fire.
Your heart breaks anew watching Summer’s breath
diminish in a blaze of the ever-renewing soul.
Release your little fires that defy gravity,
their bursting snaps flashing, sounding into the night.
The bliss of the harvest is at hand.
Make Them Anyway
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
The dead ring out of their bodies, like
tones from a bell. Sometimes we have to
uproot from home to follow the unfamiliar way.
There are still uncreated lights, and the strangers
you pass whisper: “I am you.” Live into the day.
Speak in movements. The joy of the lesson
never mastered leads to realizations of the beautiful.
The love-vowels you make when singing
diminish with distance. Make them anyway.
And when you leave, the praying mantis
in the garden will turn its face and watch you go.
Go All In
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
The arum flower has one petal.
Skunk cabbages leave the jackets
of their bodies open to keep the air
flowing inside them.
There are a thousand species of rhododendron,
and luna moths make their homes
in hickory trees.
These are all God-wished,
and the mental prayers
of seasons.
There is fatigue in resting.
Move and be energized.
Rise and thoughts scatter, like minnows.
It’s a free-thinking day. Go all in.
Add the facts of your life to the mix.
The world is not done.
We Began with Kisses
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
This poem takes place on an open-minded day.
A day full of no longer and not yet,
of sassafras trees, of the bobber going down,
the wind’s liaisons with cornfields, the imagination
spread every which way, of time maintained
in the redwood’s branches, of the afternoon’s heyday,
and the many modifications of optimism—little by little
we spin ourselves into cocoons as we change
the four-fold truths revolving around suffering
into joy’s well-founded proposals and sighs.
Writing in the Dark
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Contrary to popular belief, the pages
in your book of life are not numbered. There are, however,
reckonings, and many parenthetical days. And while the writing
is sometimes Joycean, filled with commas and question marks,
run-on sentences with so many reiterated moments,
it is serviceable and somehow legible
after the fact. There are moths nibbling the previous
chapters, and the abiding wind is always
flipping through the pages losing your place,
so be sure to keep your book in a safe, dry place.
Your propensity for nouns is to be expected,
your verbs, strident and agile, are often also nouns,
and as much as you would like to believe otherwise,
there are no errors—neither to the imagination
or the days when you ignore the margins.
The wolf and the deer running throughout do so
on moral grounds. The horizon is far-minded, time
ephemeral. Don’t even ask about grammar or tenses.
When you go, the world will keep writing
your story. In lieu of this, meander more, study
the pedagogy of caterpillars and butterflies, dabble
in novel things, use as many flourishes
as you want, use inhabited initials at the beginnings
of paragraphs, secretly write under your blanket
at night. You are, after all, heliocentric,
giving just enough light to write in the dark.
At the Edge of the Field
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
The broadminded morning slowly sips
the last of the night. The eye in the forehead
is flaxen gold. Left-over masala dosa for breakfast
is like eating truth.
Today is honeycombed
and smitten with flowers—the purple iris,
the morning glories, the tiger lilies.
When your mind tries to finagle in notions
of why you don’t deserve such beauty,
the freewheeling wind says: “You are part
of the sweetness. Enjoy your breakfast.”
Imagination is out sightseeing,
the willow lollygags in the sun,
the blue-eyed day, the quizzical robin,
the wolf, the deer—they’re all waiting for you
at the edge of field.
Until the Light
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Who has the right to close a dead man’s eyes?
Maybe they’re watching themselves circling
into the sky, their feather’s the somber hues of the hawk’s,
until the light catches their wings, shining them into gold.
Let the Resonance Fall
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
After showering, shaving,
I get right to poetry.
Running parallel to bridges,
connecting tones near and far,
beyond question my magnetic-
imagination. My whole body full
of sound. I’ve observed myself
for weeks. There is nothing trifling in what comes.
I must try to catch reflections,
transpose light as the Muse sees fit.
There is an eternal vibrato, tremulous,
holy, flowing in all things, like
notes from a low clarinet, always
beginning. I want to know everything in the world–
always beginning, the pen moves. All that is
necessary is to let the resonance fall.
It’s Possible
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Turn a little to the side, one will always—
almost always appear, nearly touching–
a whale moving through the air– staring with time’s eyes.
It’s possible. Along the narrow edges
of the mind it’s possible. It can be said—
up to a point, but is well to consider the necessary
straight lines that turn into circles. Why
explain why? It cannot be done anyhow.
There’s a whale floating beside you.
In the yard next to me, one sunflower
nods its head more than the others. I agree,
climb atop the whale, remembering
my body, as we streamline through the sky,
steering towards a story that guides us.
It’s possible. It’s all possible.
Until the Light
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Who has the right to close a dead man’s eyes?
Maybe they’re watching themselves circling
into the sky, their feather’s the somber hues of the hawk’s,
until the light catches their wings, shining them into gold.