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Many thanks to Aida Hayek for her wonderful pottery, Message in a Bottle, in tribute to my poem, Sunset. Please visit the entire Falmouth Public Library art tribute. Art begets art, after all.

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Cartoons by Andertoons

The Frozen Man

I read about this discovery a few years ago, and I was intrigued deeply. And so I try to put it to poetry to find out who he was.

(ode to Otzi, the iceman)

Something in his eyes still flicker
A distant but distinct sign of life
As if his presence waits to be thawed
Icy walls, his reflection: like a gleam on glass
His limbs lay dormant, his emotions internalized
A captured beat pounds in his buried heart
The source of all that life can conceal
Emanating from within, seeking expression out
And the burning flicker in his unmoving eyes
A timeless message from the person inside
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

Moonbeams

The sky is radiant tonight
An unabashed, seductive moon
Throwing herself recklessly
Against the fondling clouds

Their fluff, her curves
Her shine under their cover
In soft yet distinct light
Yes, the sky is radiant tonight
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

Abstruseness

Life is beautiful
And impossible

We love, we lose
We care, we crash
We believe, we burn

But ever worthy
Pain is pulse

If nothing mattered
No point to exist
We would dissipate

Leaving no legacies
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

Flight

There are birds outside my window,
And I hear their music every day.
Songs increase, volume and response,
Melody strikes every moment; they notice not.

They sing because it comes from inside;
No conscious choice or decision. Rather,
An intent to join and communicate,
And in so many ways mirroring flight.

Seamless, effortless, uninhibited.
Notes uplifted to the very sky.
And with their vocal optimism,
They gather together and meet as they fly.
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

Alone

Listening for the silence
The echo never returned
However heartfelt the call
There was no response

And the sky stood still
Absorbing only emptiness
No breeze to even murmur
A distinct solitude to embrace
- 2009, Mary O. Fumento

Semantics

You philosopher, me poet,
So very much lost in between
True to ourselves, we made words
And missed the world in being

We were so compelled to be
To see the world as it is
And your world makes such sense
While my universe simply lives

Life and its lights, all I see
A mere beacon through the dark
Your sound reason, and its logic
A definitive way to make a mark

There was a galaxy between us
And somehow we were able to meet
Common ground at last uncovered
And I found you made me complete

It does not matter so much why
Although I consider it every day
Maybe because you were different
And opposite in so very many ways

But for a time, our planes crossed
Intersected, collided points-of-view
But in knowing you I was fulfilled
From the mere simple essence of you
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

The Search

An endless search
Many empty days
Countless frigid nights

Finding love pure
Then losing you
Inevitable, as I endure

Knowing, feeling you
Was worth the loss
Just life made real

Want, need, desire
Originate in source
But differ somewhere

And in their variety
I found peace, comfort
Because of what I knew: you
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009