Month: February 2022
Pattern Recognition
Scratched by sunset claws
her face dissolves in winter clay
Scales drop desiccated lashes
Cliffs threadbare, roots exposed to sky
Sun-withered, kelp drooping on old logs
No child cartwheels across that expanse
Different gulls lean against the wind
On the same trajectory
where my mother’s ashes swept away
I slowly fade in her wake
Diana Milia, 2022
Earl Grey’s Jewels
Fetish languages
Tangled in lines of leaden blue
Secretly suspended in ice cube rooms
Enthralled in lures and holding firm
What do you call it, say its name
Write it in skin
Let it sink in
Upside down falling inside
If I let go, maybe
I can touch the bottom with my toes
Diana Milia, 2021
Earth and Sky
Some days the real is transposed
Zeus cloud herder possessed by nature
Lost horizons, a single notion
Sky cult meets chthonic rhythms upriver
Diana Milia, 2021
Nature
I have no words
to say you inspired
You are the first and the last, and
all words in between
You that wrote me into this world
Diana Milia, 2021
Subdued Bliss
Writhing mass in the grass
Sinister sirens
Silvery silken threads coiled in a lie
It wasn’t what you wanted to say, but
it can wait
Lie in wait
Unwinding tension
Passion flowers, a visiting bumblebee
Soft sensation spreads and
It doesn’t hurt any more
to say yes, and no more
Diana Milia, 2020
Match Sticks 1
Fire Wood 2
Fire Wood 1
Fire Water
On a beaten path between high rocks
Narrow views and dry wells
The air holds its breath and the sun turns red
A single songbird dies in flight
Still I go on into parched canyons
Where fire was first housed
I am tall and free
I am sharp as an arrow
I am stealthy as the jaguar
I dance to the drumbeat of a summer night
I am a waterfall tumbling stones
into a river that wanders through valleys,
picks up sticks and rushes to sea
I am a child on the beach looking back at me
– Diana Milia, 2021
Waiting for Rain
The Drought Years
Can dust get more dry?
How deep may the sun burn?
What will I say when we finally meet beyond the desert?
Words turn to sand in my throat
Unwatered seeds dormant on desiccated leaves
A dim picture on the screen, swimmers
in an Olympic pool, another mirage
Shimmering waves, and
shrinking trees nevertheless signal a presence
An old pantheon, survivors in an oasis
A yet untapped source
Stones in the River
The new world has become the old world
If I were a wealthy divorcee
or a wealthy widow
I would live in Lake Oswego
with a view of Mt. Hood from the window
and a piano by the window
A piano I wouldn’t play
No, I would walk down to the river
I would kneel and ruffle every dog’s fur, but
Instead of joining the legion of elegant women
Walking elegant dogs
I would be an elegant woman with a backpack
and a book of poems
Joining the river