Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tree Lover


I was not his first love, he confessed,
on our honeymoon in Yosemite,
eyes dewy and soft, hugging  tall trees all around us
stripping down to swim in icy lakes
and run in weedy meadows.


 Montana
he whispered one night in his sleep
smiling, murmuring something and something
as though he was back with an old lover.

L.A. and  smog
Santa Ana's and traffic
five -to- seven work days
confused his senses
after a while.

He no longer called anybody's name
on windy nights.
Long cigarette's puffs managed to
silence old desires.

But he built tree houses for his children,
in a mini forest he planted in the backyard
complete with a small creek,
and a pond for turtles and frogs
and bunnies and salamanders
all the while
recreating his childhood in Montana.







11 comments:

  1. This is beautiful Rosaria ... I haven't spent much time in Montana .. you make it sound enchanting.

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  2. Thank you for putting a smile on my face... especially on a busy day. :)

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  3. oh my I loved this....so wonderfully written

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  4. rosaria, you go from woman, in your introduction, to place and i feel the intimacy of both. this is a wonderful poem, a poem of forgiveness, isn't it? in a way i wish there was a second poem. in it he could say the name of a woman. wait a minute!!! perhaps that's what you meant by montana, perhaps place, perhaps woman, (???) and still there is the resolution. look what he has done with his life! what has uttering one word meant against this?

    wonderful! this is exciting for me, rosaria. ha! in the unraveling i have realized just how wonderful.

    xo
    erin

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  5. Place can be as powerful and overwhelming as person; it asserts such a power over us. This is beautiful Rosaria.

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  6. Ah, it was his murmuring at night that caused the confusion in his lover's head. She felt second-fiddle to his Montana. A place, a lover, a desire not met. She felt distanced, defeated by what she could not be for him.

    It's a response to the lover's longing for what he gave Up!

    Only by giving the things he missed to his children, building for them, and for himself, the paradise he longed for, he was redeemed in her eyes, in his own eyes.

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  7. Intimate and beautiful. I'm glad I didn't come here until after you added that last bit.

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  8. These are the tensions of my life, that is where you send me. The constant give and take, desire and fulfillment, and that we cannot be all things, or find all things, in one another. Very beautiful, and for me, poignant.

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  9. This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.

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