Marybeth Hollemann

Giardino di Ninfa

long

like rapunzel’s

cascades of blossom

(oh you’re just a legume!)

winding twining tightrope

walking (jesus)

across placid-eyed stream you

speak in flow

current

long

the spaces between

each                 word

as if to taste

fully

its sweet nectar

before another word

slips

through.

(the how, now the what)

no trivialities. there are

no trivialities.

everything matters.

what i do, i do with my heart.

all of it.

there is nothing that does not matter.

each note

each bird.

that frog’s three croaks.

the trout just now touching

the surface:

see how the water dimples,

ripples, changes course?

petals falling from the tree,

crumbling Appian bridge,

and clematis, white,

billowing against the

ancient

travertine

wall.

time, says wisteria,

does not exist.

Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound and Among Wolves, among others. Pushcart-prize nominee, she’s published in venues including Orion, Sierra, North American Review, ISLE/OUP, The Future of Nature, and on NPR. Raised in North Carolina’s Smokies, she transplanted to Alaska’s Chugach mountains.