Pagnucci - Tracks on Damp Sand

Tracks on Damp Sand by Franco Pagnucci North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc. St. Cloud, Minnesota To Susan & Gian, Robyn, Anna, Stefan Cover art by Anna Pagnucci Inside photo by Anna Pagnucci Copyright 2014 Franco Pagnucci Print ISBN 978-0-87839-756-3 Ebook ISBN 978-0-87839-980-2 All rights reserved. First Edition: March 2014 Published by North Star Press of St. P.O. P.O.

Box 451 St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302 northstarpress.com Acknowledgements Some of these poems have appeared in Lowly Crow, a limited edition handmade book by paper artist Susan Pagnucci Bur Oak Press, 2006. Others have been published as follows: The Christian Science Monitor (March 5, 2012), Where You Were Headed. Red Ochre Press (Fall 2012, Vol. 2, #3), All That Is Left, Black Bear, Deer, Heading to the Dentist, Now the Swallows. The Raven Anthology (2012), Deer, Heading to the Dentist.

Whistling Shade (Fall-Winter, 2012), All That Is Left. Wisconsin Poets Calendar (2012), Everyday Were on the Lookout. The swallow brings back blades of grass not wanting life to go. Eugenio Montale, Lindau Contents 1. Before the Rain Before the Rain A grouse crossed the road and ran for the woods, and under sprinkles, a bald eagle rose from a yard to a birch. The urge was there, to look out from their eyes.

We walked on. A soaking rain satisfied most of that afternoon. Now the Swallows... They are gone. And sparks of their twitters. At the bottom of the hill, air over the bridge is a vacant house.

Footsteps dont raise a flutter. Under the bridge, their mud nests entangled by dusty webs. The neighbors house behind white cedars. No one knows if we passed or if we looked back. The Bobcat running across Robinson Lake Road, looked at me over his left shoulder, yellow eyes holding the lights of the car and any light from my eyes. He could have been on the path off our back steps.

I rushed home to tell but felt unsure. Come to the Window A shadow. A dark spot in the leafless trees against a chalky sky catches your eye. High in a poplar, a thick base. A white head appears and disappears in a smudged heaven... You, too, see the bald eagle and square your shoulders.

Desert Sparrow You are far from home if I saw you where we live. Maybe you turned off once somewhere to have a look and kept going. Its the urge that makes wings lift. We rise and move out. I remember one winter going to look for the desert. We found it fenced off at the edges of the highway.

Afterward we came back feeling better about our own place. All That Is Left Imprints of your tires on damp sand... I see them. Maybe the road holds the pressure for a while. Maybe leaves shifted along both sides as you drove away. Who else to remember you turning a page in a room, creaking a chair? All goes silent, though I put these words around you.

And nature is unmoved, even if I love what green is left. A new pair of muskrats stuff weeds under the roots of the birch. The lake cools in November rain. Otherwise Eleven geese lingered in the bay and one lost mallard. The pale light distanced itself. Wind hunted openings.

Two Chickadees in the trees along Bony Lake Road were saying their name. It was sunny. No wind to speak of, but seven below. We heard them clearly, chick-a-dee-dee-dee... fee-bee, over and over and looked up, our faces muffled toward the cold blue, where an immature eagle, dusky head, dusky tail, brown-speckled body feathers more black than brown, was gliding cold lonely magnificent up-drafts he seemed to own. All Day Great sweeps of wind, were settling the cold in.

Chickadees twittered from the hollows of the spruce and stayed put. The bald eagle came down into a low pine below the northwest hill out of the wind. In late afternoon an orange horizon, and a clear night. Stars. I loved the feel in the west of days getting longer. below the swish of the pines, the lake shifting under the ice, a faint rumble on the wind again... like someone awake and pacing the dark kitchen. like someone awake and pacing the dark kitchen.

It pulls you out of a winter burrow. When you hear it in the night, you lean your chin on an arm on your bunched pillow to listen. You would get up if someone called, needing you. So, why shouldnt I think of you, how you saw that scarlet finch, working between tufts of the spruce, gathering cobwebs into a ball, the sun brightening his scarlet throat, and how you called me to the window? Another Snowstorm So the lake had been stretching awake in its shell and my goggles fogged up and a whirl of windy snow dusted my jacket. My mind, a sleepy marmot, ducked into the bed of the lake, again, under the cover of ice. Icy Heavy Wet Snow Even the deer must have been surprised.

You could tell theyd come back looking for green shoots and trampled everything in the open, sun-softened places. We met on such a foolish start of a season, as if someone pointed to each of us and said, There. Crows Come in Bunches Crows come in bunches to the river channel, where the ice has opened a slit like a window. They squawk and from the trees come down to drink and look. Small bird tracks are there and a mouses. Even the fox stopped in the night.

We go close to look, too. The pale sandy bottom... 2. Where You Were Headed Where You Were Headed It didnt matter. It was how the pileated woodpecker squatted to her belly and draped and dipped her neck, one side, then the other, to her chest in a rivulet of melted snow. It was how the wind rubbed across the pines and the clear melt washed down every road rut all that afternoon.

Eagles We saw the two making grand loops, dives, and sweeps over the river channel to Birch Lake, one white head and white-tipped tail leading, he following every lift and dip, every curve. Smooth as two skaters on air, connected by a ribbon of air, a rhythm wave from head to wings and tail, they went as they knew from a thousand runs. And she never slowed down or pretended so she could be caught even if thats what her whole self wanted. Every feather tip to quill end told her to fly, and his chase was a furious desperate urge that pulled him after her so that from the start he found and fell into her air wake and let himself be pulled like a winged skier. That seconds pause when they connected, mid-air above the river and tumbled, turning clustering loops downward and parted and went their separate ways, it was a sunny, late, mid-April afternoon, and we stepped in close toward each other. Bailing Out the Old Rowboat in the Morning After a dry May, a rain.

The muskrats swimming out, diving into the lake weeds, ripping a mouthful, then hauling it up and back, strands trailing over a shoulder. Tiring work, though the lake is calm. Friend, how insignificant my bailing seems. Wind on a Sunny Morning I look out on a cottony surface of the lake. Tiny newly hatched black flies swarm my head in the unusual heat of a sunny morning, before a little wind kicks up, sweeping the water like a good host and the flies from around me. The varied greens leafing out of the trees across the lake bring out a tenderness, and the wind and I walk up the hill, looking for others to greet.

You Heard You heard the eagles wings flap, flapping against the lift, like a large umbrella in a great wind, as he struggled to carry the big stick pole. Not much of a builder, still he must have felt he was doing more for her than most, and hed been at it for weeks now. He rose above the white pines peak and her whistles and loosened his claws, letting the long stick drop, left of center, next to the trunk. It settled well but dislodged a couple sticks below it, and they tumbled through the pines branches, knocking and echoing, like a screwdriver down a basement stairs. When he dropped in next to her on the branch, she shifted a little, then settled back against his side. First Swim Up the hill from the lake, you hung your suit on the line, pink patches from cold along your hips and thighs, beads of water crowded in the small of your back, and above you in the blue dusk and light wind, tall poplars leaned and let loose the last of their cotton.