You can’t hold onto light, or love, because
desire makes us weak. Dostoevsky’s
gambler had a system for success: you don’t care
about wins or losses. you simply play, and win.
You care and you lose. Nevertheless, you return
to past loves, the difficult loves,
the light of friends, a superb meal, even words
that fit just so, in order to keep on going,
to live and work as if the next bliss and joy
awaited just around the block or atop
that sullen ridge—and you are correct: here
it comes in the wind,
a scent of something foreign and deep,
the scent of lemon in a nearly-Arctic zone,
sour and sweet, salt and bitterness, all lie
on the tongue, the most secret and strong
of the senses, muscled. Today you’ll sit on a stone
in the sun to taste the moment.
D. Iasevoli has taught for 40 years. He received his doctorate in Teaching Poetry from Columbia University, and specialized in the works of Donne, Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Jorie Graham. In 2000, he was New York City’s “Poetry Teacher of the Year.”
He has lived in New York City, Western Massachusetts, Germany, and California’s Bay Area, and has visited all 50 States. Much of his writing concerns the specificities of place. He now lives in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, where he serves as a volunteer firefighter and chairs his town’s Board of Ethics. He makes bows (for archery, not presents).
Iasevoli has published both essays and poetry, in such titles as Chiron, American Aesthetic, Albatross, Blue Collar Review, English Journal, The Blue Line Review, Knot, Words Apart, and You Are Here. His chapbook, The Less Said, was featured at the Bowery Poetry Café.