Because it is more user friendly, I have moved my blog to: http://plumlover.wordpress.com please go there for my new poems. Jim Ciletti jimciletti@comcast.net

Grandmother, They didn’t tell me I’ll never See you again. Didn’t tell me I’ll never hear you Humming in the kitchen. That your hand Will never help mine Stir the pasta. I’ve opened my ears. Pulled the quarters from my eyes. I’m waiting To take your hand.

Blackie our cat has been MIA for ten days, no, for 2 weeks and Quiggly, the brown-grey tabby, missing for a week. Food bowls full of food. This morning, in fresh snow in the yard an animal's track in a single file of paw prints. Only one animal makes a single file paw track like that, a fox. The last time I saw Quiggly I was departing for Carbondale and she rolled over onto her back, stretched out her legs, exposed her belly for a long belly rub from me. She purred her thank you. Pre-dawn snuggles, departing for work, saying grace, bedtime, before the light goes out, or trip departures, may my last touch, be loving.

84's

In night's darkness I saw so clearly the starlit road; this morning opens to sunlight. Now I am blind.

84s

What is real, words out of the mouth, the voice coming into the ears, or the voice singing in the heart?

When Dante saw Picarda in Paradise he wrote: ond' io a lei 'ne' mirabili aspetti -- vostri resplende non so che divino -- che vi transmuta dai primi concetti. "Something inexpressibly divine shines in your face -- subliming you beyond your image in my memory" In short, dear friend, you are far more beautiful than I remember you.

Helpful Quote

"Writing was my ticket to true authenticity. . .my way of knowing the world and my relationship to both it and the people I knew in it. Discovering the truth in my poems was both frightening and life enhancing." Sheila Bender in the book, Marry Your Muse.

tomatoes poem

Dear friend, they say tomatoes ripen in the darkness. As sunlight streams into the kitchen window long legged tomato seedlings arch their back turn their first two leaves to the sun's fire. Arching sunward open mouthed, I swallow sunfire light. These plants green up, leaf out and grow so tall. Blossom. I too turn sunward, open mouthed, swallowing sunfire light. Touch. Taking your hand I will guide you through the darkness. Blossom. In the morning you will shine with sunfire light. Yes, you, illuminating the world.

mission

"As missionaries of the secular word, to receive a response from the world of mankind, we must initiate and inspire, breathe life into, our conversation with mankind."

Today, Mayor Lionel Rivera, at the Colorado Springs City Council meeting, read a proclamation to declare April National Poetry Month in Colorado Springs. If you'd like to read the proclamation, email to me and I will email it back to you. jimciletti@comcast.net.

Frost quotes

As we move closer sunward and closer to Robert Frost's birthday, March 26, I like the thought he gives us with just a few words: "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." That is why I call poetry, emotional knowledge, and that experience is not enough, to know who we are, our feeling thoughts must be pressed into words. Frost again, Poetry "It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. . . in a clarificatiion of life. . . a momentary stay against confusion."

Sensate

As I await the warmer days and will see the garlic sprouting up from the earth. . .

quote

"We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and then in retrospection." Anais Nin "A professional writer is an amateur who did not quit." Richard Bach

quotes/thackery

"Every day there are a thousand thoughts within a man, that he does not know, until he takes up a pen to write." Thackery

Why write and share? "What constitutes the dignity of a craft is that it creates a fellowship; that it binds men together and fashions for them a common language." Antoine de Saint-Exupery in, Wind, Sand and Stars

The Taste of

Fabulous evening last night. Mary and I made a "Poet's House Call" -- invited to a friend's home, where 10 of us enjoyed dinner then shared favorite poems, including Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Sara Teasdale, Bukowski, etc. This morning I was reading La Cucina, the Italian cooking mag. The back cover has an ad for Rose liquor with the lead in line of: "The Taste of Love"; the inside cover was an ad for a coffee maker with "Simple Pleasure," and an ad for their sponsors with gourmet magazines, the line, "Across North America." Voila. Re-arrange the lines, found poem that can be a power prompt: Across North America Simple pleasure The taste of love when You kiss your mate before going to work The smile from your baby Sunlight in the bare winter trees The taste of love when You walk in the door, tired from work And smell heavenly dinner aromas Holding your lover's T-shirt to your nose and enjoying the memory of last night Well, you get the picture. WRITE ON

New Years. I think of Ralph Hodgson's poem, "Time, You Old Gypsy Man" and suggest that you Google it. Its brief and timely. Today the weather an responding to the cold brings this short, almost Haiku: Crunching through the snow Freezing wind bites my face. Arms Loaded with firewood.