new poem with old things by Joanne Giannino

 

in the antique shop

there are the usual items

 

a child’s wooden desk                                                

Joanne after poetry session
 on October 9, 2024,
Barton VT Public Library

with a bench seat

attached to the front

from a one room school house

part of a set, a row

no longer needed

broken up after the town

built a brick graded school

with metal chairs

still in use

 

and over here a set of

1960’s dishware: cups, saucers

cake and dinner plates

Joanne outside another shop,
Victoria, Prince Edward Island, 2022

salad and soup bowls, maybe

that unmistakable white interior

and exterior unforgettable colors

the names of no one knows

but you know them when you see them.

 

but here on this shelf

a postcard – from somewhere

in New York, a scene, wooded

lake, a winding road

& on the other side a note:

to my dear Franny, we had

such a good time in the country

looking forward to seeing you soon

come for tea! much love,

with a faded signature

the date: 8 April 1921

 

who were they

and how did the card

come to be here

in a box from an estate sale?

the buyer took the whole lot

maybe she found the card

inside a book – meant to

mark a page

a memory to keep

to look at while the reader

read on...

 

what meaning might it have

for someone here

this lazy sunny Saturday

in Brandon Vermont –

who might buy it now –

and what to do with it –

a frame for the image –

or the note –

a bit of nostalgia – a glimpse

at the past of someone

who lived, loved, and is

now gone –

 

they say

we live on

in the memories

of those whose lives

we touch

maybe also in those

who never knew us personally

but only through a card

they now hold

in their hand.

 

– JMG, 9 ottobre 2024

poem by Joanne Giannino

 the grad student with nightmares

with thanks to the Wednesday Poets

we watched him come to realize     

That's Joanne Giannino top and center.

what he'd been reading
horror
was affecting his writing
not only
but his whole person
his waking and his sleeping
his perspective
his light, out
his gaze, down
his joy, diminished
to the point of giving up
almost
so he told us
and we listened
and he threw away the book
and he stopped watching the movie
and he turned his gaze in a new direction
his perspective shifted
his light, began to glow
like a slow kindling fire
and he woke anew
and wondering...

Joanne Giannino's poem in eulogy, Love remembered

Love remembered

Agudas Achim Cemetery, August 31, 2017

As I take my place

Standing a little back, behind the immediate family                   

The rabbi says,

“Now at the grave,

we know for sure that we will not see her again.”

I see the open hole – carved from the earth –

roots reaching out across the chasm created by the sheer cut

perhaps from the tree behind me

its underground limbs

circling above all the bodies of the dead

in their concrete tombs

the simple wood coffins encased but not unreachable:

“We are here with you,” they say.

Of course I thought none of this then,

Only – look, there in that hole in the ground is Dotty,

A woman whom I loved, and loved me.

And, we, none of us will see her smile again.

She is gone from us.

The rabbi says prayers and then gives instructions

To help in this task of certainty:

To shovel earth on top of the casket (to bury her)

To fill the hole dug for her

from which she will not leave

And to encourage us to begin the slow process of grieving.

He shows us: take the shovel from the pile of earth,

Turn it first upside down to feel your reluctance

Take a little earth, cast it onto the casket.

He does. The thud resonates.

Second turn it right side up to assist in the work,

perform a final kindness for her,

a mitzvah.

He does. Another thud.

With a firm slice, he returns the shovel to the pile.

Suddenly, workers appear

in tattered boots and

decidedly not funeral clothes

They move assuredly among the mourners,

over the grass, around the pile of earth,

they lower a concrete slab, then another

to form a solid covering over the casket

while those closest to her throw flowers

to kiss her one last time:

something soft to touch her

before she is gone from them, forever.

Then we take turns as instructed.

I throw my two shovelfuls and

try not to hear the thud nor

see the growing mound below.

Two young men, her grandson and a nephew,

take their time,

place a shovelful tenderly

into each of the four corners,

and along the sides of the grave,

carefully, as she might have

as she filled a baking pan

making a cake for one of them,

smoothing out the batter

so it would lay (rise)

just right.

Joanne Giannino

31.8.17-7.9.17                                                 

Joanne Giannino