USA

jimbertolino@yahoo.com

james.bertolino@wwu.edu

WISDOM

         "I wake up like a stray dog
           belonging to no one."
                             --Jack Gilbert

Some days I don't want wisdom, 
don't want art, just need to have someone near
to hear my silences, my large and little 

noise.  Never asked to be alone.  
I'd take something as shallow as affection, 
someone to ask me anything.  Someone 

to love me a chance to answer.  I mean give me 
a chance to give.  A poet I was
wrote that when a love dies you carry 

a heavy rock until you can't 
anymore and then mark where
you set it down.  This is called

"Carrying the Stone."  What a poet does
is carry his mark.  I've said we draw nectar 
from the fractures but I know 

that's a lie.  All love is one love 
is another.  I don't want all love,
I want hers.  But I'd take anything

as deep as her hands dipped in my shallows.
If someone touches you are not alone.
Take wisdom.  I need someone near.

---From GREATEST HITS: 1965-2000, Pudding House

BLUEPRINT

This morning the ice came.
Everything so fresh
and new--but don't be fooled.

Water is old.

When it's just cold enough,
ice will enclose everything--pebbles, twigs, 
ripe fruit and all we've built--in a brilliant casing.

This is the way water memorizes
what is temporary and in danger.
Water carries the blueprint for 
what has been made 

and missing.

At this moment, in the profound
depths of the Pacific, water is remembering
a perfect model of Hiroshima
in August of 1944.

It is glowing with the pink
of plum blossoms.

---From THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH, Skagit River Poetry

Festival 

Anthology

Copyright (c) 2002 by James Bertolino

THE SWALLOW

Floating downstream, she felt sunlight
become liquid, felt it reaching
into her ears, her lips.
No longer her being carried by the stream,
she was the stream, and the sun's photons
were tiny explosions of feeling.

She became aware of deep vibration
and of moving more rapidly: her liquid body
shot over the lip of a waterfall and off
into space. She broke into thousands of droplets,
each a point of ecstasy. She was a sigh of pleasure
as she spread into mist. Then a swallow

flew through her.

She knew a loving the universe finds
in the swallow's existence, the way
its sensual form becomes intimate
with damp air.

She felt water
on her wings.

---From 26 POEMS FROM SNAIL RIVER, Egress Studio Press
Copyright © 2000 by James Bertolino

TOAST FOR AN INSECT LOVER

May yellow
fuzz beetles
rub your knees,

caterpillars comb
your hair, and
mosquitos stay eager

yet distant,
while dancing
to the music of your veins.

May every lover
you've ever touched
return while you sleep

to be a graceful water strider
skimming the surface
of your dreams.

---From 26 POEMS FROM SNAIL RIVER, Egress Studio Press
Copyright © 2000 by James Bertolino

A NUDITY OF LOONS

Life is a nudity of loons
when the moon hangs by fingers,

beautiful in her pearly shimmer.

Our breathing enriches eternity
when the moon is suspended by fingers.

It's then we are a Fabric of Lords,
and human breath enriches the eternal.

Beautiful in our pearly shimmer,
we become a Fabric of Lords.

This life is a nudity of loons.

---From 26 POEMS FROM SNAIL RIVER, Egress Studio Press
Copyright © 2000 by James Bertolino

SEE WILLOW: A PANTOUM

At last you'll know why you came.
See willow.  Feel willow.
Hold to the proof of loons.
This day is like no other.

See willow.  Feel willow.
Feel the slender spirit of the reeds.
This day is like no other.
Step wisely along the stones.

Feel the slender spirit of the reeds.
There are crows discussing the moon.
Step wisely along the stones.
The towhee says believe.

There are crows discussing the moon.
Feel wind inside the cedar.
The towhee says believe.
A star descends and everything rises.

Feel wind inside the cedar.
Hold to the proof of loons.
A star descends and everything rises.
At last you know why you came.

---From GREATEST HITS: 1965-2000, Pudding House

Publications

Copyright (c) 2000 by James Bertolino

CREDO

We believe in the one message
like a fever chill
in each mushroom, inside
the chantrelle, the morel,
the rose coral and shaggy mane.
We believe plankton travel the sea's veins.
We believe the movement of a lake trout
takes on the sanctity of number
as the osprey dives. We believe the towhee.
We believe alpine snow water, when it teases the crags
and outcrops like clear giggling crystal,
is memorizing sunlight to help the oysters grow.
We believe in synchronicity. We believe when a poem is conceived
the beloved knows. We believe Jupiter touches us with luck
as we live and live again, and that Jesus knew.
We believe sod holds. We believe there are
in each of us particles that once
were stars, that matter is thought,
and that this belief is the way
of breathing in.

---From GREATEST HITS: 1965-2000, Pudding House
© Copyright, 2000, James Bertolino.

© Copyright, 2000, James Bertolino.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.