I Cieli di Novara

( Author's Note: These lines are inspired by the magical band of the Summer Of Love of 1967, It's A Beautiful Day, and by the magic skies of North of Italy, the great space where dreams play between the snow-capped mountaintops and the warm, blue Mediterranean Sea. )



I miei occhi
e il mio cuore
sognando
con i colori delle nuvole

matuare
nella fontana di cristallo
dei cieli di magica
di Novara.

E sono nato
e sono libero
impaurito nessuno piu'
per creare le mie fantasie.

Il mondo gira in tondo,
la neve copre il suolo,
gli alberi dormono dolcemente
nel letto di inverno.

Ma solo,
l'uccello bianco canta
il suo sogno,

volare,
alto con le nuvole
volare come me.

Quando, tutto subito,
il sole fuso la neve
a ha scaldati gli alberi,

ed il vento
scorrere
come un fiume,
scorrere le ali di magica.

E l'uccello bianco vola
la montagne,
i mari
ed i cieli di magia

dove
per sempre,
errare i sogni.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.
~~


The Skies Of Novara


My eyes
and my heart
dreaming
with colors of the clouds

growing
in the crystal womb
of the magic skies
of Novara.

And I am born
and I am free
no longer afraid
to make my dreams.

The world spins round,
the snow covers the ground,
the trees sleep softly
in the winter bed.

But, alone,
the white bird sings
her dream,

flying,
up high with the clouds,
flying just like me.

When, suddenly,
the sun melted the snow
and warmed the trees,

and the wind,
flowing
like a river,
flowing with magic wings.

Now the white bird flies
the mountains,
the seas
and the magic skies

where
forever,
wander our dreams.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All rights Reserved.

Gypsies Like The Wind

The bracing air eddied
past the sliding glass door
left ajar at the corner of the room,
as I scrambled to retrieve

the swirling pages and clips and nicknacks
upset by the sudden flurry, thinking
a visitor may be calling, or more likely,
the gypsy wind looking for respite.

I eased my way through the opened door
out onto the porch, and as I imagined,
no night callers there, nor
any reason for concern, when I heard

a peculiar stirring in the wind.
Not cries or voices familiar or unknown, but
faint rumblings, quaint and curious, with power
not unlike a magnet, drawing

me closer and deeper into the night.
Giving in to the charm, I
dawdled along, the sounds as my guide,
stronger and louder, until

a few blocks hence came the park,
the one I often haunted
on winter evenings like these,
where on the teardrop-shaped pond,

fringed with hunched cypresses
bent over from years of devoted shading
the waterlilies and grasses and reeds,
and residence to a chorus of riant frogs-

each one in its own way was my repose.
And grandest with full moon and starry sky,
as glancing moonbeams shown
the waterlilies sleepy faced-

hallf-opened, half-shut, tuckered out
from a full day's pose, giving their all
waiting up for the gala- and,
the cypresses, their shadows whiffling

across a silvery-glazed pond, conducting
a jocund choir of amphibians.
Though hearing them go on for hours, I
never once laid eyes on them, too shy

or scared to show themselves, hiding
somewhere deep in the reeds, blending
with the floating pads, unsure
of address or stay- as tomorrow,

when construction crews break ground
on a four-laned highway straight through
this amphitheater that's now called
home.

And where will they go-
the lilies and reeds and merry music-makers-
when this moon-illumined slough's no more?
Many years it took the cypress trees

to shape their bending love. I'd forgotten
tomorrow was the day. I
wanted to- wanted to forget
even the joys of this night,

the impermanance of this world-
that we are gypsies just like the wind
with home somewhere else not yet found,
lest we ever regret its ending.
~~

Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.