Gifts

“Sawmill” by Claude Croney

 

birch and beech
gave their flesh
to the sawyer
whose water-wheel
mill cut rough
medium craftsmen
composed with
a vision refined
by fine finishing
hands into objects
that pleased
antiquarians
timeless wood
legacies bearing
warm smooth grained
affections of ancestry

(originally posted in November 2013)

Venetian Glass

 

Photo From ebay.com

 

 

blood ruby crystal
embellished by goldsmiths
vessels serenely
decant sighs of Christendom
doges and popes once imbibed

 

(originally posted January 2014)

Mandolino

Antique Mandolin
Photo from vintagemandolin.net

bridging fretwork
of six generations
we finger warm tones
of our sultry biography
played upon hills of the
quaint mezzogiorno
in villages breezy
with minstrels our lives
overlapping the music
that drifts along Roman
laid cobbles of stucco
walled donkey-cart lanes
perfect fifths sing from
double-stringed courses
arousing the voices who
gather at tables al fresco
congenial with wine
we cradle in turn of our
time our veined heirloom
this luthier legacy crafted
of rosewood and spruce
Neapolitan bowlback
inlaid with rope purfling
more than an instrument
this is our vessel
our casual joys held and
cherished in songs of two
peasant born centuries

L’Orologio di Nonno

Photo from pinterest.com

 

Grandpa’s Watch

soft old gold patina
warmed by a rough rustic palm
timing medieval birth
of my father
in candlelight colored
by frescoes of Apennine landscapes
he painted while wearing
his bridegrooming shoes
this timepiece spoke life
carried vestpocket snug
from distraught
mezzogiorno antiquity
crossing the ocean of century
ticking its tireless memories
into the hands of my uniformed son
it holds heartbreak and triumph
the bloodline experience
marking we four
generations of men
nestled deep
in its intimate gearworks
where family converges
with history