#72 TWO MARCH VISITS TO CUNDIYO by Linda Monacelli-Johnson

1
Friday, March 13

What luck! My bit of bank is dry enough
for lying down. Last year’s leaves are crisp.
Words rush by like the river I’m fantasy-rafting.
So much warmer than Valentine’s
Day—when you and I huddled
on a boulder high above icy
water. Now bubbles ride a muddy rumble.
The air is calm and moist.

Back through the gate of snarled
willows—their gray velvet catkins hatched
from glossy red pods, ladybug jackets—I unzip
mine and head toward that boulder alone.
You’re in Missouri; yet, mica flecks,
sprinkled all over like magic dust,
are bright as can be, since the noon
sky has not one cloud.

Through sun-augmented
needle scent of ponderosa
I at last come out of the canyon
to cows and calves in a pasture.

2
Tuesday, March 31

The overcast is a tent.
Under it the fragrance of tender
sage leaves intensifies.
You pick a few and rub
the gray-green into your mustache
just before kissing me.

—

Linda Monacelli-Johnson is a writer and editor with a master’s degree in English literature. In 1977 she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, from Cleveland, Ohio. Three collections of her poems have been published: Lacing the Moon (Cleveland State University Poetry Center), Weathered (Sunstone Press), and Campanile (Drummer Press).

Advertisement

#23 From SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST by Linda Monacelli-Johnson

1

To postpone
succumbing to Santa Fe’s cold,
we drive down to Bosque del Apache.
Some birds winter
here; others fly on.

Cruising and pausing
along fields and marshes,
we absorb the nonchalance
of ducks and coots, the sunny
flute song of a meadowlark, the pristine
visage of snow geese
against voluptuous
mountains, the dancer’s grace
of a great blue heron, the bright epaulets
of red-winged
blackbirds, the rufous luster
of kestrels, the emblematic majesty
of a bald eagle, the unfurled
drying wings
of a low-perched cormorant,
the rolling calls and streamlined
energy of sandhill cranes.

Dreams brush us with feathers.
We rise before the sun
to resume our watch,
then flee
even farther south.

—

Linda Monacelli-Johnson is a writer and editor with a master’s degree in English literature. In 1977 she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, from Cleveland, Ohio. Three collections of her poems have been published: Lacing the Moon (Cleveland State University Poetry Center), Weathered (Sunstone Press), and Campanile (Drummer Press).