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So organized

Everything in place
Things have a moment
They have a space

Memorizing the emotion
Encapsulated
And we can't let go

Emancipated

As if we could
Let go of those things
- Mary O Fumento, 2011

On the Cusp

On the cusp
Of becoming real
The Velveteen Rabbit
Couldn't improve

The feeling, the hurt
All that was true

And the loss
Emptiness, of course
That only a simple rabbit
Could feel
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Beyond Bounds

The places we go
The people we know
Outlive what we think
For life is as it is
Lovely, available
Only we put bounds
On what we might be
Look outside and see
The majesty of those who are
- Mary O. Fumento, 2011

Tangle

A symphony of knots
Holding everything together
A slip of slack
A throw of thread
And everything comes
Undone
- Mary O. Fumento, 2010

Splinter

In shards it lays
Tiny, sharp fragments
Glistening in wait

For a slender limb
Or an errant finger

A prick, a poke
A hole it leaves
That gapes alone
- 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

Inheritance

Anatomy
It's all we get by default
We're born with it, remaining
Modest of it until we die

Brains
They don't come nearly as easy
Experience, exposure, environment
No simple skeletal structure

Bodies we are born with
To comfort us every day
And minds, they only vex
For we created them that way
- Mary O.Fumento, 2009

Oversaid, Undersaid

Always better to say
What we really feel
Than to let it all die
Never to be made real

And miss the very hearts
That need to hear so much
While in silence we cling
Grasping a favored crutch

Then in passion we say
What we believe we know
And the connection made
Was meant so long ago

But words were in the way
Or maybe it was their lack
Erasing what could have been
And leaving us no way back
- Mary O. Fumento, 2009

However long they seem, tears are momentary
And the forgiving heart forever recalls
The softest smile, the smallest love
Those tiny things that were worth it all
Mary O. Fumento, 2003

Book With A Buckle

When words were only comfort
And confidence held in hand
Paper an unjudging confessor
A passive friend to understand

That life is a complicated maze
Of choices, decisions, their toll
Of purpose, meaning, definition
Pages of a diary of written full

So very like the depths of heart
Not secrets so much concealed
As dreams, wants, and feelings
Carved into person, and revealed
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

I Know

I know
I have to go
So do you
But we had today

I will return
To today everyday
And know
I will find you there
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

Finite

We think we know the beginning,
So we feel we should see the end.
Life's spectrum isn't clearly outlined;
We think it straight, without bend.

And yet it curves, and swirls ahead.
How could or should we ever even know
If there truly are finite boundaries
That dictate where and how we will go?

We fear the unknown and the unseen,
Yet like air they surround us together.
So we envision more permanent places:
Heaven and hell to house us forever.

Forbid we drift, no anchor attached,
No harness of defined time to resist.
For then we could be free and be always
And in that open space, simply exist.
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008

Waves

Nestled in the sand
With an occasional peak or two
Waiting for the winds to change

With a red sun setting
And the beach finally abandoned
You take to the air

The clouds silently drift
While you effortlessly glide
Until it seems the sky moves

Not you
- Mary O. Fumento,1990

Crimson Shadows

Alpine Breezes

Memory of Irina

She walks alone each morning
Locked in hidden privacy
To disguise an ugly secret
An unspoken, forgotten travesty

There is no door or window
Out of which to fix her gaze
No witness to hear her mantra
Her whispered, haunting phrase

Each day she combs and straightens
Her waist-length raven hair
The other hand absently stroking
The tiny face, blank and fair

And she asks of the glass before her
Reflecting one hurt and confused
"What have you done with Irina?"
As tears fill her eyes so blue

But no one answers her questions
They hide her away instead
And blame it on a winter of fever
That left a child all but dead

And while they hoped and prayed
For something to make her well
Her face stayed sad and vacant
Lost in a most painful spell

And the child grows up and older
Without ever companion or friend
For who could tolerate the question
She asks over and over again

So alone she waits, still expecting
The return of the only one she knows
Never understanding or knowing
That Irina returned so long ago

For the name is all that is familiar
To the face who searches the mirror
Which never yields the slightest response
To the woman so desperate to hear

For unknowingly as she searches
And asks the stranger who stares
"What have you done with Irina?"
Irina has always been there
- Mary O. Fumento,1996

La Sirene (The Mermaid)

Even the gulls can touch the sky

But you remain forever bound
To the creatures of the deep
Drawn below by an invisible chain
That stretches into eternity
And clamps your soul like a fist
Forbidding you from other world
And sailing on the wind
A ride on the current of freedom

Only your sighs fly towards heaven
- Mary O. Fumento,1988

Chasm

Epiphany

Julia, at Four

Miniature maturing mind enveloping the sky
As if made witness to personal miracles there
You watched luminous clouds and birds and planes go by
As if by looking and dreaming even a child could fly

But away from my grasp you suddenly tore
And grasped at the elusive world you saw
Not noticing the danger that lurked in store
Fragile, falling Julia, broken and dying at four

Alone I remain, I wait, I endure
For Julia, who comes to visit no more
- Mary O. Fumento,1990

In Memory of a Fog

The sun breaks through the thickness
Only a blanket of glistening dew remains
- Mary O. Fumento,1984

Wild Horses

Ephemeral

Famine

Challenger

Ships

Diaspora

When we all lived in the woods
There were more of us then
How few have we become
And scattered too far away
Like dust disturbed we fly
Out and away from each other
To settle in places unknown
Abandoning what once was home
- Mary O. Fumento, 2005

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