May 24, 2020
JOHN L. STANIZZI
|
5.24.19
8.26 a.m. 64 degrees Pasture of buttercups and this morning’s wind is mild. Oriole in the distance sounds his flute, and a pileated is notching the maple. I watched, amazed as chips flew beneath his drilling, and I wonder if he’ll continue today and finish his roost. |
May 25, 2020
JOHN L. STANIZZI
|
5.25.19
7.02 a.m. 48 degrees Presence of dew, and the grass is soaked as if after rain. Onset of warmer days and the pond could not be more still. Non-biting midges swarm, and the concentric breathing circles of polliwogs design the surface with slow ripples over the mirror reflection of the birch. |
May 26, 2020
JOHN L. STANIZZI
|
5.26.19
7.17 a.m. 60 degrees Positive that a catbird has just flown to me to ask a question, I get busy overstuffing the suet and broadcasting seeds on the ground before heading to the pond, noticing the lack of clutter in my mind for which I praise the wood-thrush, as divers, the swallows, sweep and dip, picking breakfast from the surface of the pond. |
May 27, 2020
JOHN L. STANIZZI
|
5.27.19
8.02 a.m. 64 degrees Primroses are just starting to surface; soon their overt yellow, that wakes and sleeps, will spread, nullifying the dull colors around them, and trees sway, dexterous in the breeze that burnishes the pond. |
May 28, 2020
JOHN L. STANIZZI
|
5.28.19
11.58 a.m. 62 degrees Particular about where he sings, the yellowthroat stays in the overgrowth, and in spite of my stealth I never get a look, but, nimble as he was, I did manage a silhouette shot of a red-eyed vireo before he disappeared into the deep woods and rain began so softly on the pond. |
John L. Stanizzi is author of the collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, and his brand new collection, Sundowning. John’s poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Mountain Review, Tar River, Poetlore, Rust & Moth, Rattle, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others. His work has been translated into Italian and appeared in El Ghibli, The Journal of Italian Translations Bonafini, Poetarium, and others. His nonfiction has been published in A former New England Poet of the Year, John teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.