July 2022
Ray Cicetti
rwc606@optonline.net
Bio Note: My first book of poems is titled: A Forest in His Pocket and I have been published in a variety of journals, including, Tiferet, The Platform Review and The Stillwater Review. In addition to writing poetry, I am a psychotherapist and teacher in the Zen Buddhist tradition. I'm married and live in northern New Jersey.

After Reading the Morning Gatha

Just past sunrise, I walk out into the rush of morning, put out the trash, hang the feeder. Birdsong mingles with the sound of trucks heading down the road to wherever. The shadowed shapes of trees retreat over straight spined daffodils, purple hellebore, new grass.

Carolyn blows me a kiss from inside. I recall when we first met. I loved her crescent moon smile, how her laugh rippled through her body into mine. She said my eyes were green. I wondered if to be seen is the beginning of love.

Soon she’ll head out to do chores, while I read a book of poems by Han-shan and Shih-te, those iconic Buddhist friends who wrote verses on boulders and monastery walls. They smile at me holding hands from across the centuries.

Perhaps I’ll pass them on a park bench some night under a small star, share hot coffee, read poems, laugh about this fleeting life, speak to a presence that rides under the names of things. Sing their songs that rise from boulders and grass.

Our neighbors stroll down the street. They seem, happy, transformed, as if they remembered love’s mystery, or perhaps, that love’s mystery remembered them? It makes me wonder if the red thread of love lasts longer than time.

Twilight slips into night; we talk about how, despite ourselves, something hidden sings through all our changes: those of joy and despair; what we hold or repair, something beyond memories fields, and the castle walls of thought.

So Beautiful

I want to be kind but I can’t hear 
much more about illness and death anymore:
Each person’s list of Covid symptoms.
Who just left the ICU, and who didn’t.
That my neighbor still can’t taste his food.
Endless conversations and complaints 
of our world interrupted.
I know the importance of conversation—
to circle up and share is a salve for our pain.
To lament what’s lost or changed
in a world out of control. 
But I find myself drifting toward other things:
The five goldfinches, shining like yellow angels 
in the Norway spruce.
The first love-red Hibiscus flower,
W. S Merwin’s poem Thanks.
I want to hear again, Leonard Cohen’s 
Anthem lyrics, there’s a crack in everything 
that’s how the light gets in.
I’m tired of all the virus talk elbowing out
the joys of another spring.
The sight of a bushy tailed fox, 
who for two days chose our yard as its home.
The empty peace of a sleepy afternoon.
April rain, the aroma
of white bean and tomato soup.
The neighbor boy whirring with joy
as he races his toy car up and down the street.
Everybody wants to know what they’re going to do
when this whole thing is over.
I want to taste life again,
the one so beautiful it makes me stagger.
©2022 Ray Cicetti
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