Water is Life

Small ponds dot my landscape

Bringing egrets, herons to my yard

 

A small stream just a bit back

Homes otters and occasionally, gators

 

Thunderstorms, however

shake my confidence in this world.

 

Wind and swirl of hurricanes

fill these ponds, streams

 

to overflowing, splashing

up into my house overpowering

 

this world with, with mud,

foul smells, no birds.

 

Not always life giving, when water

Flows in too great a quantity, we drown.
 

Talking to the Unseen Moon

Strawberry moon,

tonight hidden by haze

rich red berries

in clouds of whipped cream

remind me you are there.


Fango (mud)  (Poem inspired by Italian floods)

When a child I thought of mud

as material for mud pies or

as the residue splashed onto

and stayed on my boots

when I jumped from puddle

to puddle in a light spring drizzle.

Now I know mud’s darker nature

that it reveals from time to time.

 

Most recently, after a night

of dancing tangos

with lightning, rain, and wind,

sixty rivers, drank themselves into

drunken excess, sprawled

over their banks

drowning fields, submerging houses,

breaking off great chunks of roads

while rushing over them, full

of this fango.

 

When sun finally coaxed the

waters to recede into a more

orderly, ordinary path of flow,

they vomited up what they

had ingested on their spree,

spewed out this foul fango.

Wherever these waters

had danced in their debauched state,

murderous venomous mud,

remained.

 

I understand the nature of this mud,

this fango. Hurricane Florence

spread the same over my home.

I’ve seen it in so many places:

California, Indonesia, Brazil,

Kentucky, and now, Italy.

The news recently showed

hopeful Italian teens working

to shovel out, and to wash

away the fango but I know

its stink will persist

in nose and memory even after

the fango seems to disappear.

 

No one who has seen or felt or smelled

foul fango will ever again

think of mudpies and mud puddles

with unfettered innocence.

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs and writes tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Internationally published, she’s a 2021, 2022 Pushcart nominee, 2022 runner-up, Robert Frost Competition. Recent publications include MacQueen’s Quinterly and Last Leaves, Verse Virtual, and Gargoyle. Her new chapbook, Feathers on Stone is available from Main Street Rag.