“The Iphigenia” and other poems – Carmelo Militano

The Iphigenia

February 10,1955

Naples, the port

A city of side streets

Where even the February sun is ready

To betray you for a lira.

Shouts: Saluti a tutti, ti raccomando !

The smell of diesel oil, rotting fish, sea air

A thousand years old

Again another journey to a New World

My father and before him his father

Sailed from Malta across the pale-blue Mediterranean to Calabria

Woven mats, brass bottom pots wrapped under blankets

A sack to trade for an unknown future.

The Iphigenia’s hull peels and waits

A dull whistle

The crowd moves back ropes are tossed

More shouts: bella mia non piangere

The ship’s movements feel like the lowering of a casket

Later in a dream

Your brother runs waving along the edge of the dock

Over and over again in the morning sun.

-2-

Mediterranean dolphins follow the ship

A woman looks at them and cries daily

Men smoke on the deck

The tobacco for a moment brings back

Small piazzas in the cool evening

Worn edged cards after Sunday mass

A small glass of red wine half empty after dinner

Your life now divided

Before and after the journey.

-3-

My aunt is holding a child and then stretches her arms towards the sun

To my mother it appears like an offering

A pledge

To God for safe passage

Few on board have been able to keep down food

The sea offers instead a steady rhythm and oblivion

As far as the horizon

There is no revelation

The child throws a toy ball at the dolphins below

They leap toward the sun

Halifax, February 22, 1955

What she bought:

One gold and green bed cover with fringes on the edges,12 cotton diapers,

1 grey-blue suit for a child of 16 months, 2 dresses, 1 spring blouse, 4 bras,

1 pair of sandals, 2 sweaters-one grey, one black, 4 towels, 2 tins of olive oil six liters each, 2 round pieces of cheese, 1 small bundle of dried sausages, a small pack of letters with no stamps, the first 10 lines of Dante’s Inferno, a bit of Math, an ability to cook and bake, the laughter of a long line of peasants, a fear of open water.

March Birthday

The day my voice arrived

Winter was a dog gnawing on an old bone

Under a monotonous grey sky

There was no coming together of social forces

The thermometer did not drop

Airports were not silent

A small cult following did not descend

To read my poetry

My ludic secrets went unexposed

My fear of poetry did not end

Stars still remained in the night sky

In the shape of pin-wheels and broken kites

Day turned to night in the pink and gold March sky

Someone I once knew in a bar

Whispered “ heard he became a poet.”

Morning After You

Sunlight slants through the windows

Stripped shadows of the Venetian curtain

On the gold brown stone floor

House silent

Contentment is a solitary room

A quiet for gotten train station not far from here

Near a vast field

Where the sun shines in uneven patches on the sea

Where a seagull glides above the lemon trees

Drifts up with the sudden drafts

Watches over the invisible generosity of the world.

This is the morning after you left the house

Orange scent till on my fingers from the cut slices

You made for me

Our daughter asleep

Following the path between the wide cactus and stunted scrub

I walk towards the ancient Calabrian shore

Hear the sea sigh, slip between the rocks

Spread across the white sand

Praise an ordinary new day with you in the world.

Carmelo Militano is an award winning poet & writer. He won the F.G. Bressani award for poetry in 2004 for his chapbook Ariadne’s Thread. His poetry includes the collections Morning After You and The Stone Mason’s Notebook. Militano’s novel Sebastiano’s Vinewas short-listed for the Margaret Laurence fiction prize and his non-fiction work The Fate of Olives was also short-listed. His reviews, essays, and literary interviews have appeared in journals across Canada. Militano currently hosts and produces the P.I. New Poetry show, CKUW 95.9 FM, University of Winnipeg. Lost Aria is his fifth book.

Cover image: Photo by Melina Piccolo.