Salvatore Ala Poems

For long spells the flour mill closed
And the waterwheel would be overrun
By morning glories,
Even anchored by the vines,
...

All our different languages
Yet trees, grasses and stones
Have the same vocabulary;
Blowing snow and mountain pines
...

In a dream her husband appears
Younger than the day they met.
In a dream he touches his wife
With wordless love in his heart.
...

Dead elephants crumble like cubist mud.
Staghorn coral or antlers of a massive cull.
The last albatrosses rime like ancient mariners.
Tigers pace back and forth in cages of extinction.
...

Cottonwood flying
like a snowfall
like a wilderness
planting all its seeds
...

When music is silent
People are dancing
When people are silent
Blight is consensual
...

A deer family plunging across rapids
In a drama intensified by a storm surge

Osprey awash in spray
...

There's one piano note my daughter plays
it's like a pearl has appeared in the room
quasi niente like sunshine on water
ineffably tender like a white rose at the limit of its stem
...

I've dad's key to the barbershop.
I keep it on my key ring
for its wistful returns.
It opens the barbershop door.
...

Juneau, Alaska


I washed my heart
...