Avery's Insight / A Slow Fullness by Anna Citrino

Avery’s Insight 

Avery, 1934, age 41
Chugwater, Wyoming

I look in the mirror and notice how small my eyes are. 

I could never make an engine like my brother Leith, 

am not good at math like Carson. 

 

Since I can remember, worlds have spun beyond what I

make sense of. Mr. Hubble recently announced he’s found

other galaxies. Ours isn’t the only one. 

 

Whirling stardust, giant holes in the sky, spacious gaps

between starlight. Worlds lie hidden inside what’s seen.

The stars on Orion’s belt could be galaxies. 

 

I know how to turn a plow to till. Focusing on one row 

at a time is the way I move through a pasture, as well as

how I make it through the world. Sometimes when I’m 

 

preparing a field in the morning beneath the bowl of sky,

the plow moving rhythmically through the soil, the world

turns into a kind of music, and I sense everything is dancing

 

to a melody just beyond what I can hear. I look at the horizon

and sense I’m a pebble in a field that can be turned by a plow.

Everything is larger than anyone will ever understand.

A Slow Fullness

Avery, 1952, age 59
Chugwater, Wyoming


"For cryin' out loud, you’re as slow as molasses in January.”

How many times had I heard someone tell me that? 

It’s not a secret. I’m not like others.
Never was good at school,
but I didn’t cry about being slow. 

While others burrowed into mines 
to cut coal, calculated numbers, or hauled stone 
for railroad bed, I’ve risen each day to light 
spilled across fields, clouds lazing by. 

Nearly sixty years I’ve walked this earth. 
Despite its drought and ice, despite a world 
rattled in war’s despair, and jolts from aging bones
as I bump along gravel roads, I inhale
the wheat’s slow, ripening as it rustles
in the sky’s blue arms. 

Every day the world ripples with wind. 
Grit mixes with cloud. 
There’s no need to forgive myself 
for what I couldn’t change. 
I’ve received my daily bread. 

I pick a few wheat kernels, 
rub them in my hand. 

It’s a good world to give myself to.

Anna Citrino has published in various journals and is the author of A Space Between, and Buoyant, Saudade, and To Find a River. You can find her going for walks near the coast or biking through the countryside where she lives in Sonoma County. Read more of her writing at annacitrino.com.

Paradise / At Maits Rest Australia by Anna Citrino

Paradise

We paused at the crossroad that cloud covered morning, 

debating whether the road would be what it promised,

“Paradise Valley.” We read the sign through the mist,

and decided to turn.

 

A long green path scattered with foxglove, 

buttercups, and tumbled with wild roses sauntered 

down tree covered hills to fall gently into a quiet stream. 

Bright blue-headed birds darted between branches 

to balance on long grass strands leaning 

over quiet mirrored pools.

 

Enveloped in spicy eucalyptus mist,

we wandered beneath swooping crimson rosellas,

leapt across steppingstones, looped through 

moss bearded tree ferns to the end of the path

where we stood between fallen logs below 

slick black stone, water sliding softly over.

 

Tonight when I look up into your face

amidst the room’s soft light, I think of that road

and the choice we made to turn down it, not knowing.

And yes, it is paradise—more alive with beauty

than we ever suspected.

At Maits Rest Australia

 

The myrtle trees

toss their confetti leaves

into the afternoon light’s gentle lap,

dot the misty air with a celebration 

of green pointillist delight.

 

Lifted out of the dry desert,

we shake the dust from our heads 

and drop into the cascading downpour 

of leaves falling into crevices, covering 

the faerie hollows and leprechaun dance floors.

 

Slowly, we wander deeper and deeper

into the canyons of color, happy 

to be caught in the wet world of life.

Anna Citrino is the author of A Space Between, and Buoyant,  Saudade, and To Find a River. You can find her going for walks near the coast or biking on paths through a forest where she lives in Sonoma County. Read more of her writing at annacitrino.com.

Leaving / Listening to Perotin's Beata Viscera by Anna Citrino

Leaving
for Richard and Catherine

Even now you are likely thinking of it,
the symphony of your leaving, violins
rising to the height of eagles, their wing tips
lit as they turn direction, incise the wind
with the hush of their departure.

Even now the gulmohar trees’ red blossoms
burn into afternoon’s air. The monsoon
will soon arrive, to wash the earth
you walked on, carry the soil’s imprint
into a stream whose end
you will not see.

World enfolding into world, you’ll return
home, unravel into the drumroll
of your journey’s finale.

Cottonwood leaves rustling in spiraled air,
you step into a river’s flow. Immersed, you
drift, unspool like music, body at rest
the wordless prayer that rises in the darkened room 

after a symphony’s final notes.




Listening to Perotin’s-Beata Viscera

A voice echoes from walls of centuries past,
a melody wandering a pathway of silvered dust
fluttering down from an opened window looking out
to a trembling twilight sea.

Birds ascend to the mountains—submerge
into canyons’ hidden depths. Sirens call
from across a cold and hollow valley
to pilgrims wandering a long path
leading away from home.

The mind sinks into sound’s green well—
rising, falling with the curls and turns
of exhaled breath. This is a birth song,
the heart’s cry declaring the pain of becoming.

Soft as incense, music swaddles you
in unresolved beauty. Moon washes
your forehead, kisses your feet.
Before you, the future burns like fire.

Shoeless, you step onto a road of flame and ice,
and begin your journey.

Anna Citrino taught abroad in six different countries. Her work has appeared in Bellowing Ark, Canary, Evening Street Review, the Paterson Literary Review, and various other literary journals. She currently lives in Sonoma County and is the author of A Space Between, Buoyant. Read more of Anna’s writing at annacitrino.com. 

Rosalie's Aspens by Anna Citrino

She discovered them on post cards—forests

she could hold in her hands.

Later in Escalante Canyon, she met them beside a beaver dam—

sun flecks filtering through florescent green leaves.

Their stretched arms on long gray sticks quivered

in the morning’s brightness, glittering like flames

or wishes flickering in the air

long after breath has blown the candles out.

Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad in international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK for twenty-six years. Her current home is the hills of Soquel, California. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, Ms. Citrino's work has appeared in various literary journals including, Canary, Paterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review,  among other publications. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River.  Her book, A Space Between, is forthcoming in December, 2019. Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com

Blue Silk Slippers by Anna Citrino

A pair of blue silk slippers rests like luminescent

fireflies on the shelf outside an Asian import store.

On the sole’s tread sit two birds in a tree scattered

with blossom—moon and stars floating above.

I imagine slipping them on, my steps trailing

secret spring flowers across the floor, air folding

quietly back into place after birdsong has slipped through.

For a morning, a year or decades we walk across a floor—

the birds and blossoms of our lives’ grief and delights

imperceptibly pressing their imprints into experience’s carpet.

We hold each other’s lives, slipping between worlds

like birdsong and light ebbing through leaves.

Walking done, in the last hours when all is bone,

our skin is so thin we touch the soul’s soft body.

Everything interwoven with the invisible, we realize

what weighs most can’t be seen

but lingers in the air like incense.

I carry the slippers home.

Light as wafers, I slide them on

and walk across the floor. 

Anna Citrino grew up in California and taught abroad in international schools in the countries of Turkey, Kuwait, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, and the UK for twenty-six years. Her current home is the hills of Soquel, California. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, Ms. Citrino's work has appeared in various literary journals including, Canary, Paterson Literary Review, and The Evening Street Review,  among other publications. She is the author of two chapbooks, Saudade and To Find a River.  Her book, A Space Between, is forthcoming in December, 2019. Read more of Anna's writing at annacitrino.com