Four Poems by Mary Anna Scenga Kruch

 

Until the Light Fails

 

I find myself in the semi-darkness

on an overcast day in early spring

when a lone cardinal trills

a plaintive song to his mate but winter

is on the light flakes that have draped

the fragile crocuses and no robins skip

along the thin blades of last autumn’s lawn.

 

The wind warns of another icy night

where we are apt to lose our lights.

Just home from surgery I lean forward

in my chair before the window

squint to determine which neighbour’s car

rolls past as my mother did the many late

afternoons she sat alone

before her living room window.

 

Tucked into her recliner she would lean

forward as she searched the open patches

of lawn for an unlikely robin or to hear

a car she hoped would be mine or my brother’s.

She may have reached for her Miss Marple

on a nearby end table found her place

and read until the light failed and stretched

as far as her short arms could reach

to pull the curtains

beginning another long evening

as her adult children went on with our lives.

 

 

Uncapped

 

In a reoccurring dream I stand before the door of a locked room holding a circle of rusted keys,

try each and find one allows me to enter. The air I bring in sends dust motes into a confused

dance: I listen for sound: a turned handle, knock, or footsteps, any of which could herald Home

or breathe life into these walls. Faded wallpaper of uncertain print remains there, clinging

bravely, turned up at intermittent creases that I rip – under which an arrow is scrawled in

grease pencil and points to a corner where a desk stands alone. Its rolltop creaks when lifted,

almost in expectation. It offers an uncapped pen, which I hold above a single, blank page.

 

 

Morning Glories

 

They cascade over the face of the fence with their green and periwinkle cornet locks, lean at odd

yet attractive angles, necks falling toward amber, geranium-clad shoulders where mild buzzing

of gilt-striped visitors momentarily pause, hovering higher in search of nectar and shady respite.

Finding it within full trumpets, bees nuzzle deep into glories’ centers that rise up to accept these

golden attentions, gratified beneath mid-morning beacons of light that tiptoe past Redwood

limbs that tower above.

 

 

For My Father, Gidio

 

I stand at the door of your childhood home,

and I think to myself, we draw breath from the same sky.

I seek brown eyes -- my eyes --and arms that draw me in,

offer ageless affection; I ache for insight

of the abyss that grows when children leave

and parenti* perish; I crave broad, Roman faces,

twinkling recognition, voices that croon dialect,

a sky that enfolds the house that still holds you and welcomes me.

 

The door has been removed, the concrete and stone structure

is wide open, but it is full. Ancient farm implements rest

where you once did. Back then, did you look up

into the same night sky, count the same stars,

dream of America, as I dream of returning to this same spot?

 

The newer house is concrete, two floors rather than one, tiled not dirt.

 

You could have used all these rooms for your cousins, who had shared the space.

How many of your father’s family have lived in that house, tilled the land,

worked in the vineyard and olive grove?

 

Vittorio and Pierina build on tradition as they build onto the house

for a returning son. They look after the farm,

reduced in size over time –

acres sold to survive, droughts and poor harvests, pay bills.

Camilla, Vittorio’s mother, has recently died;

all but one child grown, gone, settled, with families of their own.

 

The old and new homes stand side by side.

At the inside door to the outdoor kitchen,

plastic strips hang to allow the air to flow,

to welcome the farm dog and the cat who rides his back.

The stove uses gas not wood; the storeroom is stocked with farina,

newly made pasta, salami, wine lined up on the shelf,

awaiting sustenance and celebration.

 

An attached dining room holds a wooden table

beneath a roof of clay tiles.

Even now there is much to celebrate:

births, holidays, saints’ days – visits from American cousins.

Bread cools on the counter; fresh basil, sautéed garlic,

and tomatoes simmer in the day’s sauce.

A simple insalada mista has been prepared.

 

We sit down for la cena, finding a table simply set;

red wine, salami, and fresh bread wait, teasing appetites.

 

Oh, how I wish you were here.

 

 *parenti (Italian: relatives)

 

 

Mary Anna Scenga Kruch has been a career educator and writer inspired by social justice, her Italian American family, and the natural world. She has led a monthly writing group for 10 years and Mary Anna has published a poetry chapbook, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky (2019), and a full-length collection, Grace Notes: A Memoir in Poetry & Prose (2021). Recent poetry appears in Wayne Literary Review, Trinity Review, and Ovunque Siamo. She is working on her next poetry collection, A Finely Penned Road. She hopes to return to her father’s homeland again in 2023.