Samoa

She dreamed of green eyed gold skinned gods
And wakes to find 
She is in their midst,
Their sybillant hands inviting her
to their lotus-eater song
Of todays' and tomorrows' unending 
swelling silver curve of sea and sky and sun.

(Jan 1996)



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Everybody Sunday

Coral white-in-the-sun Church,
Sunday bleached yellow-white hats and
bare, brown, broad feet on warm tarred road, and
sun-through-white cloth, sillouetting thigh.

Is it only mine, 
This Sunday sinning?
This sun-through-white lavalava view
Of thigh silhouettes,
Of square, tight-muscled flanks
Walking into the sun 
To Church.


(Feb 1996)
copyright Carol Avis
________________________


Writing Again


Today, from out of the tropical 
voluptuousness into which I sometimes sink,
Today,
I pared slim slices of cool flesh:
Golden tastes of sweet-juiced mango songs.


(September 1996)
copyright Carol Avis

________________________


Weaving Room 


Newly in-love friend,
You once sent me a poem of celebration
To which I now respond from my own moment in time:


It is also when one part
                                   tears off,
rips from the other,
stretching warp, distorting weft,
rending fabric once carefully woven and patterned,

When each thread strains and snaps,
so that the very ply unwraps itself,
twist from twist.

And too, it is when,
before she thinks of reweaving,
the weaver sees that she must singe each fraying twist
just so, to seal, not burn nor blacken.
Then wet finger and quick twist the still hot ends,
wrapping each ply around the others
to reform thread so smooth that
slipping easily through her hands it reweaves into slub-free cloth.

(October 1997)

copyright Carol Avis

_________________________


Last Day in Rome 


This last morning --

in the corner trattoria in Via Tiburtina,
where first I learned to savor expresso
standing three deep at bar
with locals risking five minutes
in their morning rush
to down their thick, black, hot and sweet

This quiet trattoria morning,
A Roman stands squarely,
relishing the elbow room,
his white demitasse further dwarfed
by thumb and forefinger on tiny handle.

He sips, ringed finger raised high.

In his right hand, his talking hand,
a cigarette is snug so deep between fingers
that he seems to drag the smoke
from the very palm of his open hand.

Then in answer to a question,
he shrugs
a grand, slow,
Italian male shrug,
cigarette palm open and shoulders high,
to show that life
put nothing in his hands at first.
And he reminds  you
that the Romans have always been gladiators.

Then he turns, and pours 
his chocolate eyes into yours
as if to say,
"Yes, and they are lovers, too."
"The very best in the world,"
he would affirm.
(He who has never been out of his Rome).

(October 1997)

copyright Carol Avis
_________________________

MEMBER LINKS

Steering

Swept by some heady current, I find myself 
on a shore so different from my familiar stark cliffs 
of young black lava and slow pahoehoe* ripples, 
so warm  underbarefoot;
of well-known, salt riven, swell-worn air tubes 
blowing warm seabreath in my face;
of south-east tradewinds and swells wearing primordial jagged edges
to the smooth pride of a polynesian cheekbone.

My eyes drink this, my new coastline,
note askance the softness of the sandstone cliffs
whorled red and ochre, so weather-sculpted.
(Will I wear this easily?)
Standing legs braced against the cold wind,
I wrap arms across chest in self protection.
Look up and out, see fold on fold
of recursive blue-grey bays and amber cliffs,
mirror-reflecting mirror-image, ricocheting north and south, 
farther than my sight.
My breath cuts short in
recognition. 
A gull hang-glides cliff edge before me,
I catch her eye; she holds the moment.

Last Sunday, on this high bluff I discovered 
on the red sandstone swirls 
in one protected, private ledge, someone 
had created Great Mother Snake Spirit
with hundreds of tiny green and brown shards 
of broken glass, picked devotedly from cliff edge.
Her fifteen feet of undulation and gentle grace 
spelled out bright reminder, Her large eye clear, 
Her forked tongue smelling Her surrounds.

Each day for four days I visited Her,
Needing assurance that She stayed.

Today She wasn't there; 
But now I have seen where
She rests on these cliffs and sees
with wisdom into her bays and headlands,
As She too basks in sun-warmed windscoops.


* pahoehoe: a fast cooled lava formation showing clear molten ripples.

(July 1998)

copyright Carol Avis
_________________________________



By Train to Venice

Between the voluptuous green
curves and slopes 
and crevices
of the Italian countryside,

at times 
a higher mound will rise.

A village whose defensive walls
protected it from ancient attacks,
first century stones perhaps stained
with blood of some Italian tribe defending
against invading Germanic barbarians.

And at the base of the ancient walls,
where two slopes meet
to form a pubic dip....

a brilliant flash
of golden sunflowers.

(June- October 1997)

Copyright Carol Avis
___________________________________


The Unfamiliar

Tonight, winter rugg’d and fingers chilled
She hears the deep throated cry
of the Samoa conch call to prayer
in her neighbour’s hot water pipe.

(July 1998)

copyright Carol Avis
__________________________