The Astronomer

I want to know each star within the galaxy
Of you, to measure its coordinates and map
Its place amidst the whole, then calculate degree
Of luminosity by noting every gap.

I want to learn the constellations you have found,
To see your sky as through your eyes, then offer you
My own interpretation of the chart. Not bound
To your perspective, I can show you you anew.

I want to watch the slow and swirling dance unfold
Across the span of time, to spot the patterns in
Your lights so I can also track the changes told
By shifting stars: some reignite while others dim.

I want to spiral in and reach your very heart,
To slip between your arms and come to rest at last,
To rearrange your gravity with my soul’s mass,
Fixed at your center, now, the one unmoving part.

~Elena Nola, May 2023

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A Man Who Calls Me Darlin’

I want a man who calls me darlin'
Whose roots touch mine 
Not the same soil, but the same shade
Close enough to drink from the same ground water

I want a man who has two hearts 
One for each of mine
Art and dirt, or roots and sky
Close enough to speak the same dialect of difference

I want a man who takes me dancing
Whose steps match mine 
Who lets me come and go in rhythm long developed
Close enough to flying to call it the same name

I want a man who calls me darlin'
-Elena Nola

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Blue Moon

The moon rose yellow against a Confederate sky
Like some wasted sun, its core collapsed,
Anemic light a harbinger of change. 
But dying sun is brilliant moon;
It shone brighter than reflection,
A ring of white around its edge entire,
Almost a corona.
Almost like it burned.
~Elena Nola

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Wings of Fire

Wings of fire
Let it burn, let it burn
Let it burn away what isn’t me

Walk through life
Let it burn

Walls ignite
Let it burn, let it burn
Let it burn away

Reality falls
Let it burn

That cage is gone
Let it burn, let it burn
Let it burn away what isn’t me
-Elena Nola, August 2021

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Sicily

Perfume poem thirteen, Sicily by D and G.

Originally published in Conscious, the zine, 2018.

Summer smells of Sicily
Soap and sand and soft focus lens
Glimpses of the world through sighing gauze
The languid light of lingering sun
Below the horizon but still kissing the sky
Clinging to the blue with lover's loathing of farewell

And to the air a flower opens
Its swelling sweetness tension in the dusk
A breath of life renewed with day's decline
Too gentle to compete with harshest heat
But counting down the rays till soft can shine

Perfect moment plucked from time
Like ripened fruit still warm to touch 
Awaiting what comes next 
While yet complete within itself
The stillness between two memories
Perhaps the strongest note of all

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Sonnet for blackbird

Originally published in Conscious, the zine, 2018. 

She furled her wings in gravity's embrace
And watched the blue horizons meld - no line
Between the sky and sea, one world erased
As water covers blackbird in its brine.
Surrounded by aquatic life she longs
To be a fish, because it's all she sees.
Forgetting flight, and wingbeats' subtle song,
She rides the surface, banned from swimming deeps.
Nor fish nor fowl, she struggles to relate 
To either them, or self, or life: a ghost.
She cannot see potential lost but hates
Her muted voice and salt-caked feathers most.
Facades decay and warp as they suppress;
The strongest parts will always manifest.
-Elena Nola

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When the deluge falls

It's been so long I've wondered
Would I even recognize the rain?
But the signs are unmistakable
And waken primal knowings.
Pores open up like plants
The scales of our hair sip moisture
And stand tall in attention
Our noses know the smell of rain
Ears can't unremember thunder
Our skin flinches with the electric shock
As lightning scalds the sky
The sucking void of warring winds
Winds the breath up in the chest
The tactile call and response
Between barometric change and body 
Forms precious proof that what's forgotten isn't gone
It's merely biding till the time
And when the deluge finally falls
You can't remember
That you did not remember
-Elena Nola

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