Lago Maggiore, May 2011
The verdant versatility of green explodes
everywhere. Luxuriant shades
in exponentially unlimited mutants
of jade climb from ivy ground cover
to the tallest Cyprus, from rampant weeds
to nurtured hybrids.
Italy stages a kaleidoscope show
of emerald today. Olive trees, lemon trees
and grapevines compete with oleander,
quince and palm, vying for praise,
preening in their own perception
of green.
In May, the green goddess
immerses herself in creation
taking center stage from her masculine
counterpart, who dominated the winter with
his white and gray deliberate laws of logic.
Driving through cavernous tunnels,
out of darkest winter into
the splendor of holy hillsides
the world sings out hallelujahs
of green in a cathedral of green.
Now we are inhaling green,
drowning in green, allowing the contents
of our heads to be filled with green.
as the goddess of evening euphoria
greets us with grappa and genepi.
BIO: Dianalee Velie is the Poet Laureate of Newbury New Hampshire where she lives and writes. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and has a Master of Arts in Writing from Manhattanville College, where she has served as faculty advisor of Inkwell: A Literary Magazine. She has taught poetry, memoir, and short story at universities and colleges in New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire and in private workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her award-winning poetry and short stories have been published in hundreds of literary journals and many have been translated into Italian.
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