Author Archives: Erika Bizzarri

A PAIR OF WORN-OUT SHOES They were sitting on the windowsill in the old house. Honey colored, rather battered, worn-down heels. Soft, misshapen. One lace skipping an eyehole. Still she remembered them as comfortable which was what she now needed in a shoe. A day or two they would still serve her to walk alongContinue reading “Shoes”

The first thing you see when you come in the side door of my house in the country is the madia. A waist-high box, over a meter long, it’s more elegant than the usual kitchen type for beading frames the front panel and the drawer at the bottom. The hinged top can be raised, revealingContinue reading “Madia”

Alone. I draw the curtains to shut out the light of a night that refuses to be night. I’ll wake up to what might still be night, or dawn, with time, the hours and the days, always the same.  Alone in the country. The night is black. No city lights. No distant mountains. Just theContinue reading “Nostalgia”

ION BUCUR A poet I was told you are a poet. A poet slowly fading away in a clinic in Rome. But that was years ago, in 1941 or perhaps 1954.  Your portrait, swiftly drawn with brush and ink,  speaks to me out of the past  – and I would surely have fallen in love with you –Continue reading “Ion Bucur”

The old address book seems to be full. We did once use address books Written on paper, adding and crossing out Our daily contacts. A Royal Horticultural Address Book With a rock rose on the cover. Year after year, names added, names removed. Fingermarks on the cover Cleaned with a soft eraser more than onceContinue reading “Address Book”

A chip-carved wooden box, a pin with one blue stone, gifts to hold and touch, evoking a name, a time, a feeling. Other more ephemeral gifts, a poem, a word, a gesture, somehow exquisitely private, live on in memory alone. This is for you, he said, handing me half of his orange. More could notContinue reading “Gifts”

We’re on a boat in a pond. My father and me. He says I have to learn to swim and pushes me over the side into the water.  (He was like that. My aunt, his sister, remembers how he made her jump off a high diving board, or maybe pushed her,  even though she wasContinue reading “Virtual Photos III”

My basil seedlings Lie askew Their spindly thread-like stems White against the moist black earth Dislodged Disturbed By something. The stick I poke into the pot Grazes A speckled yellowish mound. Some kind of fungus? Warily I brush away more earth. Suddenly Two great dark hooded eyes Are blinking in the light. A golden toadContinue reading “Golden Toad”

Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. WW II, 1939-45. Fast forward and there I am at 16, walking to Bradford Junior College from high school, along the bridge across the Merrimac River.  (I’ll then go home with my father after he’s finished teaching.) There we are marching down the main street of Haverhill, all in whiteContinue reading “Virtual Photos II”

6 Feb. 2017 Interlude  I’m sitting at my desk, reading Berger. A curious tickle on my wrist distracts me from the page. Perched on my cuff is a small shield-shaped insect – wonder where he came from – his long feelers sounding the terrain. He’s brown, actually quite handsome, but I deem it best toContinue reading “Interlude”

On seeing a bat (May 1993?) Feb. 3, 2001 The shadows in the room were layered Like watercolor washes From pale grey to almost black. A flutter – not heard – but seen. The darkness shivered and unloosed a fragment of the deepest shade. It darted silently from left to right in swooping arcs thenContinue reading “Bats”

Apartment for Rent: I had been away almost a year and now needed a place to live. I was outstaying my welcome with a college girfriend and evidently the gods were in my favor. At the time East 71st St. between 1st and 2nd Avenue, with its blind windows barricaded behind iron fire escapes andContinue reading “From California to Italy and back to NYC”

January 2, 2004 Another day begins. Set patterns of behavior govern our every move. Demands, requests, solicitations. Wandering attention is quickly brought back into line. Vines etched against a pallid sky. Golden oaks tossing in the wind. Coffee wafts through the air the cup warming our hands. The chill of morning kept at bay byContinue reading “Poet”

1955 I had my degree and it was time to venture into the future. It started with a stint at a museum in Long Beach, California, before taking off for Europe. There wasn’t all that much to do in the town and about the only thing that was interesting was the beach with tankers loomingContinue reading “California Impressions”

Sounds March 8, 2021 Sounds that were and no longer are Sounds that are and then were not Velcro The click of the camera shutter The third avenue El. Memories of the past. But then there  is also The wail of a baby crying A sound now lost in yesteryear As the baby becomes a man. OtherContinue reading “Sounds”

I suppose I could have gone to Boston but I think I just wanted to get away from home. Besides which there was really no home any more for my parents had sold the farm and were living in a trailer. Logically, it was NY that beckoned and I had a possible contact in theContinue reading “New York City”

  Perceptible, but barely. The sound of a petal dropping from the full-blown rose on my computer tower.  We wait a whole year for that one brief moment of beauty, Francesco had said. But what about the other kinds of beauty, the other stages in growth and development, not just the flowering?  Another petal drops.Continue reading “The Sound of a Petal Dropping”