Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Connecticut Senior Poet Laureate

CAROL LEAVITT ALTIERI

CAROL LEAVITT ALTIERI, 71, Madison, Connecticut, is a retired science/language arts teacher. She is author of two books of poetry and recipient of the State of Connecticut's “Green Circle Award” for environmental stewardship. She has three children, seven grandchildren. Her sign is Scorpio.

TONIGHT

my father sounds restless walking the acres
of Flag Hill Farm. Has he crossed the cosmos
gone to other planets and returned?
He ought to be out in the garden harvesting.
Instead he's dawdling in heaven savoring
raven pranksters of the realm turn skyward.

How he runs from ghosts in dark air.

Who does he wish to see,
his wives, son, two daughters
who have journeyed away.?
Does he want to pick the fruit
from the peach, apple, pear trees he planted?

His love for me feels like apple picking, feels
like sap running; ravens passing objects to one
another with wing tips touching, playing
on mountain ridge.

How he hid from ghosts who tried to plague him.

Spring water in the well is quenching
after haying.
Does he watch royal blue, amber-breasted
barn swallows build their nests on beams in barn
he once showed me?
I can still smell the sweet hay scent of our
barn and farmhouse.
Back to that time and place,
I visit the old creek deep in woods
passing time with my feet dangling in Frog Brook
trying to view the hornpout and trout.

I hope he unburdens and wrestles time back.

Someone tell the new businesses not to cut down
his orchards.

God, how his ghosts meander in dark air.

Carol Leavitt Altieri
Madison, Connecticut

Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation Presents the 2008 Connecticut Senior Poet Laureate

CAROL LEAVITT ALTIERI

Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Connecticut Senior Poet Laureate