I chose at random the most difficult to traverse. My walks become a balancing act, a hike. A lesson in the art of being present to avoid another fall. The uneven cobblestones, the unexpected slopes on the sidewalk, the steps, the hills, up and down my feet, my legs, my whole body contorts in a balancing act. The narrow sidewalks where we have to go up and down to the street to let each other pass by. We all dance on these streets.

©Maria Caponi

I carry time in my body.

Time, I think, obsess, worry

about time: is it linear, curves around?

How come I can remember the past

but I don’t remember the future.

I age, but once I was young

Time is a coordinate

like space. In three dimensions

we step forward, backward

or stay in place.

Memories of our future create

confusion in our brain. Repressed

they reappear in our dreams.

At seventeen, I dreamed of ocean

and lakes. Deep blue water from above,

then in the afternoon – colored slate.  

Two years later when I left

forever, my hometown, I flew five

thousand miles to New York. Through

the plane window, the deep blue of the Hudson below.

I dreamed of cigarettes and traveling forlorn. Ten years later

my partner, his lungs eaten by cancer, died, left me alone.

Once I was young, but before I was not

Time, I think, obsess, worry

about time. It slips and slides

from my hand like a bar of wet soap,

falls to the floor hides under

the kitchen table, it gets kicked

around, can’t be grabbed,

it glides fast, and then manages

to spin and roll.

Once I was not, but before maybe I was

Time, I think, obsess, worry

about time.  I want to clutch,

grip it and fly to the future

the present and back to the past

I gained wounds and scars in

my haste to catch this time,

to live in the past, present

and future at the same time

Once I was dead, but before I was old

I deny emotional scars, a mother

who died before her time,

a too kind widowed father I left, alone.

I focus instead on physical scars.

The one on my chin or my arm.

Those I made by falling,

traveling alone in foreign lands.

Those I made distracted, iPhone in my hand.

They are learning scars

These scars, don’t go away,

into my future they carry

as memories of my past.

I can remember my future,

when I look at those scars.

by Maria Caponi

Bark twist. I see you.
On my daily walk, ascending
the hill, 200 steps,
plunging downwards three blocks of concrete,
to the golden powder by the ocean.

Bark twist, you are.
By the side of the old
wooden stairs. Gray, brittle odd
shape husk as the back of two legs,
chest and head buried
in the soil, where we spread
your ashes, white fine dust.

Bark twist bends.
On the land where
my sons and I scattered you.
So much white powder. An urn full
dispersed under the canopy of
deep-rooted ancient trees.

Bark twist, shaped.
The weather-beaten wood
molded like a yoga down dog
reflecting sunlight. You didn’t like yoga,
you didn’t like to exercise, but
you would meditate.

Bark twist, in between
wild yellow flowers
exploding after the rains.
I imagine your soul
rising, giving me a sign,

after so many years still alive.

This poem and the picture appeared in the February OAP Newsletter, page 14