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A Need to Fill Poems by Glenn P. Garamella
cover art by Doug Reina
6 x 9 paperback, 76 pages
mankh(a)allbook-books.com
LISTEN to the Get Lit With Literature 14-minute interview with Glenn reading 3 poems
~ for sample poems and about the author, scroll ~
“What a treasure of insight, reflection and revelation Glenn Garamella’s poetry is.
I have been keeping his book on my nightstand and flip through it every night
to read one or two poems. Incredibly, each one selected speaks to my mood
or the moment. Thanks for placing it in my hands!”
~ Gen Shore
We’ve Been Taught
We’ve been taught
to place one foot in front of the other,
that’s how you make the day happen.
I prefer to stop and wait
and let the world come to me
not chase after the dream that got away
or walk in wider circles
after my tail.
Much better to plant myself like a tree,
wait for the wind to rise up
and fill my branches with birdsong.
* * * *
A Need to Fill
Something inside me calls
to fill in that empty space
at the front of the yard,
a single voice traveling
the length of the body
in need of a conversation
with the outside world.
The thought to add color
where there is little,
transplant daylilies and let them sing,
dig out a shovel full of earth,
move the bulbs and roots a stone’s-throw away.
By summer,
bright orange and yellow flames appearing
where before only a dry dirt patch.
* * * *
Thoreau]s Cabin
Only the granite markers remain,
the cabin wasn’t built to last,
worn down like the nubs of pencils
he sold in his father’s wood shop.
Stones would have lasted longer
and given the walls a solid history,
but two plus years was all he needed
in the hollow cheek of the clearing.
Surrounded by pine and hickory
he became a poet of the bearded woods.
Unafraid to lose his reflection in the water
allowing the forest to become his school.
Such courage to live alone with nature,
to keep the company of your thoughts
and live without the syrup of conversation,
to steer away from the approach of footsteps.
He left the Pond a greater man,
able to hear deep within himself,
a voice connecting the earth,
far beyond the canopy of the stars.
note: Though often idealized as a solitary man living in
the woods near Walden Pond, Thoreau also traveled
with and was schooled by members of the Penobscot
Nation. The Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail in Maine honors
those travels and interchanges.
* * * *
In Half-Light
In half-light you saw the trees
unwilling to give up
their necklace of burnished leaves.
Deep December and below freezing
winter couldn’t keep a stronghold
on this stand of short maples,
the wind would have to work hard
to unscrew them from their branches.
Hard to say goodbye
the leaves, the leaving
turning away from a handful of hard facts
pointing in the face.
While reading in a dry, stuffy room
I try not to notice my brittle skin is
chipping like stone buddhas in the backyard.
Thinking of frozen roots,
I feel the blood slow in my arms
and the sky about to fall asleep.
The lyric branches of the trees
rise in salutation
toward the last rays of the sun.
Suddenly leaves flutter
turning their small bodies
into handfuls of pure gold.
* * * *
When Trees Feed the Field
1
The honey spun by a host of bees at the back of the apple orchard.
Groves planted more than seventy-five years ago by a family
with roots in Spain.
Not farmers but they raised their family on a farm;
children grew up with livestock.
Skin brown as wheat toast,
lined like tree bark with soil deep
beneath their fingernails
they peopled the land.
I learned you don’t water apple trees, they drink rain.
The bees feast upon apple blossoms drawing nectar
along hair-thin antennae,
making honey in their six-sided honeycombs.
This honey tastes of apples because that’s where the bees
had their meals, every drop is medicine against common ills.
Concentrating, I can smell the apples in the air-apple wind
traveling in every direction. The orchard comes home with me
in the car.
The scent lingering for hours or even days,
powerful like the salty beach
or the sound of dropping luggage on the floor
after a long vacation.
2
We go places that change us whether near or far,
getting into our pores, our DNA.
Step back and remember the promise you made so long ago,
before you were born, standing over
your seedling of a life.
Remember the wish to stand by that tree and watch the long arms
spread wider than the sky.
Think of your smile, the boughs filled with fruit,
and know this was an answer to a prayer
made in your bone and blood.
Apples now fall, feeding the earth and bees take flight,
the afternoon bowing into sunset.
Rest, restore your soul to travel
in younger fields.
About the Author
(photo by Matthew Garamella)
Raised in Douglaston, NY. Attended Queens College, BA in Philosophy; MA in Counseling Psychology from New York University. Spent his career developing and coordinating Employee Assistance Programs for employees of the city of New York. Lifelong meditator, student of Eastern Religion and Spirituality. Married to Ann, lives in Huntington, NY. Son Matthew, an environmentalist and musician, lives in Boston, MA.
© 2021-2023 Glenn P. Garamella and Doug Reina.
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