Michael Carrino
Waiting For Summer in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont
--I, Alvy, hope someday, someone is impressed that I lived in the Northeast Kingdom for some time.
--journal entry
Summer will be easy warm and azure blue
when it can arrive. It will
drift through September, try to linger
into October, and only fall, along with each
compelling, dying leaf.
Another long, stone-gray winter, and again
one more lost spring, its possibility
vague in wet, slant
memories, on nights like tonight, a night
cold and leery, a feral cat curled
in a dim lit corner
too long before dawn. I, Alvy, roam
the house imagining Jake, once
a friend, lingering
at The Gap Pub and Grill in Westmore
near Lake Willoughby, where he spills
clichéd angst, half-hearted
regret, to no one in harsh closing time
light and then I find myself staring
through my bedroom
window, where I find nothing
but night, must imagine boreal forest,
moonlight, remember
summer will be easy warm; azure blue
when it can arrive. Each languid day
counted to allow
summer to feel endless, counted
slowly as if
to slowly lull me
away from one more memory.
Methods of Painting Waterfalls
--the brush stops but the spirit continues...
-Wang Gai in The Mustard Seed Garden Manual
The ancients said Take five days to place
water in the picture
Wang Gai instructed artists to paint until
close to hearing
sounds of water to remember ping yuan
perspective how
artists must consider it vital
Wang Wei wrote
when one paints a waterfall it should be
painted with some interruptions
but no breaks while all ideas
must remain
uninterrupted as one divine dragon
partly hidden
among clouds, head and tail one
natural connection
I often read, lazing
on the rock wall
above the lake beach
have never seen
a dragon divine
or flawed as all of us
Much time long gone
since I've seen or heard
one waterfall yet in reverie
can hear its echo and roil
I cannot paint this lake
by moonlight dark
cloud about to part
and certainly not any waterfall
yet in one calm silence
I believe I might feel
waterfall mist touch
no caress
my dry palms
