Prudence Shadow Puppets To Write the Sky

Prudence

NANCY DIAMANTE BONAZZOLI

On the drive today I passed a baby fox splayed over dirty pavement, his fur’s strawberry highlights reflecting dawn light.

My heart’s reaction benumbed by living, I didn’t stop. Wasn’t curious enough to meet his glassed eyes nor compassionate enough to pray over him.

The moon tipped last night, sloshed her brilliance all over my tiny trailer’s walls. I squinted, shut out radiance.

Still, our city hasn’t burned. Our family all came home last night. That it only happens to others is a story we tell ourselves

for we, who have time and peace enough for poetry, speak of our privilege to friends who share it.

The wisdom of foresight might have saved the fox; we, who are awake enough to read this now, perhaps might yet weep.

Shadow Puppets

NANCY DIAMANTE BONAZZOLI

Past midnight, I sit, your writhing pain fracturing my courage.

Gathering my wits I shape my hands create cinema in silhouette:

Palms together, three fingers stretch donkey brays

Fingers shift, elephant’s trunk rumbles grief

Thumbs press together butterfly flutters disappears empty sky.

Your glazed eyes widen before dropping the curtain closed, setting our smiles adrift.

What am I calling forth from these shadows?

If it’s any consolation, a star sings that same question to the sky before burning— the waning refrain of its dirge.

Nancy Diamante Bonazzoli is an Oregon poet, writer, and Zen Buddhist Minister. Nancy is a past winner of the William G. Doody Memorial Prize for Poetry, and her debut collection, Absolution, was published in October 2019 by Luminare Press. Some of her works are in various journals, including The Stray Branch, River Poets Journal, Ars Medica, and Blue Moon Literary & Art Journal.

To Write the Sky

NANCY DIAMANTE BONAZZOLI

Outside my window, quail, heads crowned in inked apostrophes bob tentatively; my pen above this empty page.

It’s hard to make healing read healed, hard to write about what breathes beyond this hill.

Far from news of impeachment trials, DACA kids, Syrian refugees, shot-up schools, fires swallowing cities— my quiet mountain refuge.

In the distance I hear trees felled for their bodies like young women defiled on dark city streets,

glimpse snow angels lying face-up, abandoned in the shadows of a field.

As quivering beaks release mouthfuls of song before sunset finishes bleeding, stars unite to write the sky full of hope.