Patrick Barron

Deltas


When you looked at me with April eyes
     it was already June
but in the mountains

     seasons snare senses
make them seem liminal puddles
of apprehension-affirmation

of a rotting-reawakening whole
of a part of another whole
     when meanwhile leaves rioted

in the valleys below
     amidst globes-glands
of multicolored fruit

     that permitted little space
to send thoughts
around seeming stases

of bodies marked by paused within
places coupled to places.
     This, it seems, is how wrinkles work

their way across brows
     around eyes along lips
that mimic murmuring brooks

     or slopes that slip down slopes
towards tightening pits
of the earth's stomachs

that restrict-release
the pulling into expression
     the dilution from notions-emotions

to waters that flow through flesh
     to shifting deltas
that pour soil into seas

     whose salt in sweat reminds us
of our modest-marvelous
fountains of origins.



Patrick Barron is an assistant professor in English at the University

of Massachusetts, Boston. He was recently awarded a grant from the

National Endowment for the Arts for his translations of the work of

Italian poet Andrea Zanzotto. His books include Italian Environmental

Literature: An Anthology and The Selected Poetry and

Prose of Andrea Zanzotto (University of Chicago Press). His poetry,

essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in many

journals, including Poetry East, Ecopoetics, Two Lines, The Worcester

Review, The North Dakota Quarterly, Interdisciplinary Literary

Studies, and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry.