Say, first thing, a gray day color zap.
Plastic daisies in a bucket on an un-shoveled porch.
You pull from your parka your Minolta and shoot.
Oh sunflower sunflower how yellow you are.
Remember that road trip, that mile-long field?
Say now you tour the museums’ grounds.
Imagine chalk art under snow-slush walks.
See Schreckengost’s dinosaurs
Vandalized Rodin
The icy lagoon. That willow. Shoot.
Third stop, to warm and micro-aim
The botanical gardens’ hothouse one
Orchid a “Purple Rain” hue. Stop Four
Homage to the tie-dye ghosts of Hessler.
For now you shoot their frosty brick street.
A wind rises up. Stop Five Severance Hall.
We ran that time from L’Albatros, right? And
We still missed the start of Wagner. Stop Six
The Barking Spider
But now without friends
Wood burner, burnt-orange, heavily graffitied
Whiteboard restroom walls. Desk lamps
On the bar. On to Mama Santa’s
Checked tablecloths, spaghetti, bread.
Where did we fail? Please help me see.
Then dread, facing dusk, up Mayfield
The stone wall, amber-lit, fires.
All in your eye and heart the fading
Lake View Cemetery’s blacks and ecrus. But
Tiffany Chapel’s stained glass
And some bird in a red-berried tree.
So you fly back down to Murray Hill. Home.
“Tangled up in Blue” plays in your head.
You’re that, and that, a balladeer gone rogue.
Your camera’s gone warm in your coat.
And what of tonight in your dreams’ azure walking?
What guidance through their cold steps can no f-stop claim?
And what of tomorrow when you trek to the proving
Ground of the holy lonely?
The light, the truth? The darkroom.
Marcia Camino holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She is author of Crayzee Aayzee: A Poetry Abecedarian; Oomee Boomee, Space Yogi; and The Pink Lotus Yoga Professional and Yoga Teacher Training Program Manual. From 1996 to 2003, Marcia lived, studied, and worked in Little Italy and University Circle. She currently lives in Avon Lake.
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