Rusty Nails

Peter Ruggiero 12/24/1914 – 02/08/09


Rusty Nails

Rusty nails in a cardboard box.
What did you see worth keeping?
I’d like to know.

I remember your hands – they shook
when holding old things as if mesmerized,
and I wonder

what treasures your mind created
out of rusty nails and old strings?
What poetic notion

let you dream beyond the dust?
What golden vision took you there?
I need to know…

Rusty nails in a cardboard box
a poetic legacy, words to a song…
oh, had I asked you then… I so need to know.


Carmen Ruggero ©2009

The Scent of you

Summer time, fire orange, red geraniums,
hot sun burning on the sidewalks;
ice-cream, sprinklers, children cooling,
cooling down… and the scent of jasmine
fills the evening and I remember you
weaving the colors of summer
into the autumn landscape,
turning yellow to tawny to cardinal red,
and there you were,
bagging leaves and burying bulbs,
brewing coffee, baking biscuits
and weaving the fabric of life;
merging the hues of each season
one into the next: red to yellow,
to evergreens laden with snow.
Weaving our days right into spring
when new life glints in waves of wonder
and the pretty flowers bloom;
when the tiger lilies and yellow roses loom,
and the scent of you is in the air
and the robin sings his love song,
and oh… yes, I remember you.

Carmen Ruggero © 2008