12.9.18
8.13 a.m.
14 degrees  

John Stanizzi

-          14 degrees, but no wind.  Absolute calm . . .

Pacification of stillness.  One cardinal calls what cheer, cheer, cheer!
obbligato section of the seasons.  But I say, always, that I
neither love it nor look forward to it.  Of course, it arrives nonetheless,
deepening the pond’s silver to a burnished gray sculpture of itself.

John L. Stanizzi is author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide—Ebb Tide, Four Bits: Fifty 50-Word Pieces, and Chants. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Connecticut River Review, and many others. Stanizzi has been translated into Italian and his poems have appeared in many journals in Italy. His translator is Angela D'Ambra. Stanizzi teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut, and lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.