walking under a pine tree

walking under a pine tree
the falling snow
                          pauses

written March 2022

A Small White Moth

I saw a small
white moth like
a tuft of fluffy snow
amidst the summer day
that seemed to struggle
with flight. It labored
upward, then, like a
kerchief on a string,
fluttering and falling,
was drawn down to the soil
beneath a bush. May it
find a good place to rest,
I thought, thinking
it had come to the end of its life.
                                                   Then
later that day I saw
a tuft of white, a moth
I took to be the same, in strength
and in flight, perhaps
earlier what I saw
had been the beginning.

summer 2014

A Little Joy

For stretches of my life
anxiety kept me
from looking forward to things.
And now, here, something little:
I just anticipated walking through a piece of sunlight.

October 2021

Morning Sun

Sitting in my living room
in morning sun,
the shadow of my fingers
on my cupped hand
recedes
when I open fully the hand
into the light.

January 2024

I Knew

I knew spring would come
I didn’t expect
the birdsong
to be this lush

written March 2023

A Warm Day in February

My step
more confident
on the path today
ice and snow
softer
and more ground
bare
passing near the pond
I see meltwater
on its ice and am brought
to my childhood backyard
it’s like a pond back there
Mom would say when
the water would pool up
around the big pine
and eventually freeze
then on a warm day
hold melt we’d
scuff and glide
on it in boots
in this memory I feel
a simple time
and my ability
to recall that time
might show that something
of that happiness
is present today.

written February 2023

ladybug

ladybug
on the windowpane
climbs the blue sky

written December 2023

A Cup of Tea

I was astounded when I read
that the water we drink
is around three billion years old;
I was sitting with a cup of tea
that seemed so new! — 
and now ancient as well.

written April 2023

Nature

what is this

these smooth stones
round and solid
gathered together here
among a trickle of water

and the water
that shimmers and flows
as a flat stream
under this bridge
to go and join the pond

and the lily pads
out on the water
some of them
together flapping up from the surface
in the wind

and all the green of tree
coming to the open-air pond

what is it
is it written in

the way the world of nature
arcs toward beauty

written August 2023

after crunching through leaves

after crunching through leaves
the pavement
so quiet

written October 2023

Breakfast for Dinner

I made an omelet that pleased me —
no easy task — it was thin
yet fluffy, with broccoli and American cheese
down the middle, and it wasn’t much to look at
as the folds toward the middle
weren’t perfect, but it was good!
And I ate it, thinking about how
I’d have to tell my mother about this victorious omelet,
and soon I was almost done.
After enjoying a couple more bites,
the omelet

was gone. I looked up
and noticed the slider blinds were open
but it had grown dark outside.
I took my plate
to the sink, and things were,
well, okay.

written October 2021

A Man Reminded Me

In the egg aisle
a man reminded me of my
American-born Italian grandpa.
His hair was stark white
growing mostly on the sides
of his bronzed head.
I took a few good looks,
and felt sad to think of someone
I have lost. After,
as I pushed my cart
toward the checkout lines,
I saw him again, moving away from me —
and even his gait was like grandpa’s:
square, with a slight limp…
And I thought it better to be grateful
than saddened, to see this glimpse
of someone gone
long ago.

written November 2021

Listening to the Shins in San Diego

Almost twenty years later
on the East Coast
with the Shins
on in your headphones

you think:
I’d go back there
I’d relive that…

even though
you know you were miserable:

the dishes stacking up in the sink

leaving an emotional message
on your not-really-anymore girlfriend’s machine

saying no to invites
tired all the time

and sitting outside a café with a friend
telling him how depressed you were

but still

there was the Shins
and there was Belle and Sebastian 
and the beautiful Southern California neighborhoods
to take walks around

and there was that morning:
the morning when there was a glimmer
of life beyond your depression —

I think the medicine was finally
starting to work —

you were up early
and white pieces of something like snow
were falling from the sky in the warm breeze

you put out your hand and caught one
and you could see from the vein lines 
that it was a tiny piece of leaf;
it was ash
of vegetation burning somewhere
and the sky would turn red

but that early morning with ash
falling from the sky

something lifted within you.

written April 2023

In a New Place

I can open the book in my hands
and enter its pages
or
I can be with
the blue jay's cry,
the eastern sunlight
falling on my coffee table and mug,
and the frost I see
still on the floorboards of the balcony.

written November 2022

Creative Instinct

A bird calls out
with a spring song.
Sunlight streams into
my warm living room
on this cold morning.
A cup of coffee
and thoughts about
the human imagination.

written March 2023

Rainy Morning

It isn’t just non-sun.
It is a beautiful wet stippling
of the landscape. It is
a nourishing gray. This morning
I’m studying writing on self-worth.

written April 2023

sky so blue

sky so blue
behind white birch;
near-half moon

written July 2019

Blossom

When I try to consciously
appreciate moments
I tend
to cling too much
to them
but yesterday
I saw a toddler
walking yes on his own
wobbly he moved up the sidewalk
his grandmother there with him
and I thought how once
I too was new to walking
that
experience we both share
may
that moment of connection
be a blossom
if
most my moments were of bloom
my life I would live in flower.

Michael Orlando Mancarella
written October 2022
Published to Bird Sounds & Sunlight on September 12, 2023

A Field in My Mind

(with a nod to Mary Oliver, who wrote of fields of one’s mind well before I did)

A field
barren and cracked
at the hands of anxiety and pessimism
finds itself becoming fertile,
with peace as its nutriment.
I wonder,
from the seeds inherited by the mind,
what will grow here?

Michael Orlando Mancarella
written February 2023
Published to Bird Sounds & Sunlight on September 2, 2023

There Is Beauty

There is beauty
to working through worry
while birds call outside.

There must be a kind of health
to land that supports birdsong.

The birds call to other birds.

I wonder if their song
could be for us too.

Michael Orlando Mancarella
written April 2023
Published to Bird Sounds & Sunlight on August 24, 2023