Slow Down

How many
days will we waste?

How many
nights will we spend
talking to cobwebs on the ceiling

sighing . . .

"Tomorrow is another day"?

And how many times will we go
from house to car
and car to work
then back again at night

never once stopping
to look at the evening sky . . .
never pausing . . . to take a conscious breath?

Just rushing on to the next moment
without lifting our heads

to gaze at the stars and the moon
that fill the sky with silent light

waiting, waiting . . . to bless us.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

This Is True

Some things are not for sale
like the moon in the sky
and the shadows of the trees
the laughter of a child
and a grandmother's hand.

Some things are not for sale
and never will be
for we hold them in our hearts
and they ride like the wind
free for all who breathe.

Some things are not for sale
like the spark in a lover's eyes
and the truth of a well lived life
the beauty of the smoky hills at sunset
and the sound of the lark.

Some things are not for sale
they belong to us all
without price to pay or barter
they are the gifts of the Giver
and they make us shine.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

Life Is Love

Life is so fragile
we are all waiting to be born
and held forever
in the palm of God

Life is so beautiful
we've been given a heart
that beats the time
for all who've come before
and all who have been promised

Life is soul magnetic
attracting, holding fast
the good and bad of humankind
the very best and worst of us

Life is purely gift
forgiving one creation, leaping to another
to please the smiling God whose
only dream is love.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

The Clothesline

It’s sweet nostalgia
come to visit me today
bringing me to Brooklyn streets
and brownstones with their backyard lines
childhood thoughts of neighbors
hanging wash
tattle tales and peekaboos
hung dripping on the line.
Minny’s see-through underwear
and Bobby’s holey socks
Alice wears a bra now . . .
can you believe it?

Soon the winds will grow too cold
for hanging clothes
but still . . .
I might just do it one day, anyhow
just to see
the frozen stiffs come off the line
remembering
the laughter in our kitchen then
when my Mom pulled them one by one
hard and cold
through the window . . .
clothesbodies
waiting to lie down
on toasty radiators
and dream away defrosting.

And I, waiting too
to sniff the crisp winter’s air
that floated through that place
filling little heads with happy memories
times too easily forgotten
in a world gone electric.

Joanne Cucinello
(written in 1988)

Hidden

Layers crust the earth and rocks
hiding what the chisel knows.
Time marks trees with circled rings
the proof of their existence.

We dig and chip away
hoping we will find somewhere
in the root of our beginnings . . .
that moment
that one glorious moment
when the first Being stood and
shouted to the stars . . ."Aha"!!
and knew that there was more.

We will not find that moment
in our diggings anywhere,
nor in any rock or tree recorded
No . . .
that sound,
that first illumination
did not plant itself beneath his feet.

It traveled, racing
through the stars of the great night sky
straight across the heavens
and there it found
beyond the darkness waiting . . .
the wild expectant heart of God!


Joanne Cucinello 2010

October Song

Vibrant crystal days
of autumn sunshine
lift my spirits once again
and call me past my window
to the color feast outside.
There's no place like
New England in the fall!

Crisping furls of frenzy
decorate the path
before me as I walk
and breathe my life today.
"Let go . . . Let go"
say the trees.

They are giving up
their leaves again
the verdant gift
and canopy of shade
I welcomed so this
summer.

Now with brilliant
sunlit tones of fire
the leaves begin their litany
of au revoirs with beauty
unrivaled even
by their birth in spring.

Toppling swirls burst and
crunch beneath my happy feet
ignoring the fact that
soon enough I'll wake bedraggled by
the thought of digging out those
long toothed rakes growing
cobwebs in the shed.

Joanne Cucinello 2009

Yours To Live

Flesh and blood are we . . .

from your beginnings in my womb,
flesh and blood are we.
Marked and linked forever, our DNA
the signature that binds us
not erasable, you and I . . . my child.

Flesh and blood are we . . .

tinged with colors handed down
from those who came before us
a pool of genes translucent
a miracle in the making.

My flesh and blood, my heart . . .

even though our eyes see differently,
even though you dance a different dance
and what you yearn for I can't see.
Your precious life is yours to live . . .
as even I did mine.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

We Can Only Wonder

When we read about the torture of other human beings, their deprivation and humiliation, and still . . . their continued will to survive, despite the horrors endured, we can only wonder at how immense the human spirit must be. Conversely, it is hard to conceive of what exists in the minds of torturers, what levels of consciousness they dwell in, when one tries to believe they are human beings who walk among us on this earth.

There is a vast expanse of human experience, a wide spectrum of evidence that suggests to me . . . humanity is as mysterious as its Creator. We continue to uncover such darkness and suffering, unbelievable inhuman cruelties that leave us to wonder how and when mankind will ever evolve past these deadly sins. It is only the witness of those beings who, in their simple acts of loving kindness and compassion, raise humanity above its own gravity and allow us glimpses of what we can become.

The Aftermath

We have witnessed sorrow and it will not go away.
We have felt it in our veins and it is everywhere.
The world still reels in shock from September 11.
Like an earthquake, tremors ripple in our consciousness.
Vivid dreams of that fateful day replace our silent slumber.
Threats come and go and every time we think it’s over
terror strikes again in one form or another.
Here, there, everywhere, the world is shaking
and we are standing at attention, waiting for the next wave.

Life, for many, is changed forever.
We no longer play the games of little children,
sitting safely in our huts, for we are far more fragile
than we want to know.

The Center of the Bull’s Eye,
arrows point at us from furtive nations
and we see their plots in every morning’s news.
Like a sitting duck, we wait for the unknown,
as the ground beneath us trembles.
Oceans that once kept us safe and separate,
no longer fill their duty. . . .
bandwidths have replaced our bridges.
The enemy lives within our borders and computers
And our boundaries are no longer clear.

In spite of this reality,
we are still a nation of heart and compassion,
a nation of faith and great blessings.
We have always been a haven for the oppressed
and our streets are speckled with every race, color and creed.
Our doors and ports were always open
and for this we’ve paid the price.
Even our dirty laundry flies at the wind in daylight.
Perfect . . . we are certainly not. All loving . . . we wish we could be.
All forgiving . . . we have a long way to go.
But in God our trust lies and in our spirit is the freedom to grow and learn
what it takes to be truly human.
Peace is a dream we’ll never see in our lifetime or any other,
But it’s the striving for it . . . that will change the world.


Joanne Cucinello 2002

There Is a River

The ancients say there is a river
a river red and made of blood,
a river that flows inside the body
pumped through a cavernous organ
we have come to call the heart ~

This is the Cavern where love lives.
In and out, the great river flows
watering all its tiny capillaries
feeding every speck it finds.

Into tributaries, brooks and streams . . .
the rivulets of life, it rushes,
nourishing the soil of our flesh
our mountains of calcified bone ~
and the sympathetic organs
that kindly keep time
even as we sleep ~ watering, watering
this wondrous clay we are made of.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

(Artwork:Photobucket.com/bryansamdub)

Sand Castles and Waves

Such a dilemma
for a child who needs to hold on
to the things she'd made.
Six years old on the planet back then
so many toys I'd wished for
had to stay wishes since
even Santa, lectured my parents, . . . was poor!

But there at the beach
all the wet sand was free!
Free to build anything I wanted
and I did!
Castles, caves and secret tunnels
and the deep dreaded hole.

We were told by my parents
that if we kept digging
we could get to the other side of
the world . . . and we'd know we got there
when a Chinaman's head popped up
through the sand.

So we'd dig and stop, my brother and I,
dig and stop, taking turns wondering who
would be the one to see that head of
shiny black hair emerge.
Scared and excited, holding our breath
as we dug to the other side of the earth
reserved for our adventure.

When the afternoon sun began its way home
behind the waves, we'd sit wrapped in towels
waiting for the ripples of ocean's tide
that never failed to come and wash away
our castles, and fill our deep hole with shells
so we could sleep without fear
of that head popping up
from the other side of the world.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

Torch Songs

Please understand . . .
when I heard that song on the radio
and you saw me get so dark and quiet
it wasn't you . . . it was the music.
I know it's beautiful,
and I know you love it, but
I begin to drown inside
with every chord.

It moves right in and takes me over
like the cold dark ocean
rolling onto shore.
I change . . .
my heart begins to pound
and my fingers freeze.
I feel like a little girl locked in time.

The music of my mother
the love songs, torch songs
the dark nights and muffled sounds
echoes of a broken heart
crumpled in the corner of a room.

It just begins to happen when I hear
the notes curl downward
like that melody she sang
that never ended . . .
that image of my Mother
in her long black nightgown
lying cold on the floor
while the record kept turning
round and round
the needle skipping
in the same scratched spot
~ till they found her.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

All the Way to the End

I was never the one to seek out ecstasy.
You must know that by now . . .
yet even then when the blush
was blooming, I'd lay in awe
and listen to your heartbeat
enraptured knowing you were mine.
We loved like the sun and moon
finding our own rhythm
glowing and dimming
always returning to the place
where we began.

Back then . . . it was the flesh
impatient to climb the mountain
to cling like moss to the rock it found.
We were young and beautiful
shining even in the dark
you and I, always yearning
always hungry for more.
Little did we know
that "more" grows deeper in the soil
than moss that climbs so visible.
"More" grows deep beneath the flesh.

Years have passed and time
has changed these bodies drawing lines
across our flesh
but here we are, my love . . . still singing.

Even now . . .
when I come to you
my beauty less than yesterday
your eyes still say I'm beautiful
for what you see is more
and I know that it's your love
that holds my soul and blesses me
and I will love you . . . to the end.

Joanne Cucinello 2010