Poems by John P. Kristofco

Crescent Moon, November

hillsides waited, silent,
as the diamond blade
sliced onyx night,
freed the fingered trees
reaching from the pallor of their withering;
I stepped into my midnight shadow,
stood upon the grateful fallen leaves

 

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A Kind of Easter

Footprints steam into the night,
lifted from the weight of days
to travel places feet can never be,
and souls escape to dreams
before the heavy mist of dawn
descends on pathways and the sidewalks,
the places people go.

 

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Sunday Mass —and after

Six o’clock, the sun reached in the kitchen
like a finger curled to call us out to church;
seven scrambled to the clamor of that tiny house,
single bathroom, 7:30 Mass.
The ’50 Chevy stood  outside the door,
four girls fit across the back,
me between my parents in the front
pressed into the car like empty jars
ported to the sacred waters
filling us to purpose until
winds of Monday beckoned,
drying us to penance once again.

 

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Yard

no order once, except the twist of tree and rock,
river through the clay,
days of eagle, bear
before the footsteps carried nightmares, dreams
across the light of virgin streams;
before the concrete, wires,
window sills, Buicks,
tires in the driveway where the deer once ran,
bungalows and basements, tomatoes in a plan,
clematis curling toward the sun,
wound around a trellis
like the tidy work of hands, feet
framed into the back and forth
of glider in the turquoise night,
counting of another passing day