Gabriella Garofalo writes

Actually, the water I loved and so many seagulls,

The harsh salty smell, they all mourning

The eyeless souls bereft of their fathers -

Well, fathers are the first items to go out of stock

When the market is up -

You know, ‘t was the deep of night, midnight maybe,

When she went into labour:

The sky but a campsite of sorry screams,

As the moon was shunning the birth

They were forcing on her,

And believe you me I saw them,

I saw the campsite -

Trees, paths and creeks are my family,

No, afraid I’ve got no kith and kin,

Afraid I care not for big cities,

Those feral passions that carve my limbs off,

Afraid I can’t hear that voice, that song

When green or blue yield and surrender -

Hey, hold on, look, they’re rambling

Through the roads, the red-soiled groves,

Why, where, don’t ask, they were born

To love the wind who rattles our tents,

To be in love with intractable suns -

Well, I can’t keep up with them, can I?

Certainly not, that’s why I lose my wandering prophets

And my landscapes always leave me behind.

 

Ghosting in the Rearview -- K. Ryan Henisey