The Swallow Riders

With an installation on an ancient Etruscan grape vine.

This ancient Etruscan vine cultivation technique continues to effect Umbria’s landscape today. By this Etruscan invention, grape vines are suspended between two fruit trees, as this one is between these two apple trees.

In this installation, I attached paper grape leaves gilded with false gold to a vine with copper wire, to honor last year’s lost crop. 2023 was a particularly difficult year for grapes in Tuscany and Umbria due to unusual rainfall during the month of June. The harsh effect of this atypical weather was felt on vineyards in these regions.

I ideated this installation last August. As we near this calendar year’s grape harvest, these paper grape leaves commemorate the crops of 2023.

The following poems are from my book in progress, Psalm of Leopard, from the sub-section The Swallow Riders from the section Ancestors of Northern Dawns.

Da lontano, le tamburelliste

To Caves, The Swallows

Active Stalagmite

Kite

Come castle built to bluff, a swallow —
found alcoves tint of honey–land
but, the rocks it stood were made of sand.

At shore’s moat and divide, right on illusion,
bird lost its feathers — nature molting in confusion —
to whisper bones of strophes that would be proclamation.

Da lontano , le tamburelliste

Visto nel bianco cielo del celeste tinto diurno, una crescente luna.
Sotto il sottile corno stanno costruendo, gli abitanti chi ci si insedieranno
una città di pietra grigia.

Al culto lunare sono aderenti,
erigono il tempio sotto l ’ estiva crescente.

Dalla città in costruzione non lontane, spuntano dalla sabbia tre palme,
segnano un cruciale punto d ’ incontro.
Persino c ’ e un pozzo.

O Viaggiatrice,
chi sei tu e da dove vieni ?
A quale vagante circo appartieni ?

Accompagnano con i tamburelli,
ragazze vicino al sito del nuovo paese sedute,
il coro al canto dei muratori.

Sempre costruiscono di pietra il paese,
al mercato : le colonne per cavalli ed asini.

Nidificano ed allattano sulle rocce,
i gatti di Gerusalemme.

Nelle fresche grotte,
i gatti giovani sono incaricati di contare tutte le rondini.

E le gatte giovani, ancora non madri sono incaricate
della mansione di in alto guardare.

Phase waiting for when breaks season for seeing horizon’s pastels,
then who dwells design for the desert will look up at skies
to partake the moment when hot–air spheres rise.

To Caves, The Swallows

Rough feathers, they felt at embarking.
The Swallow Riders were gradually departing.

Absence lay its form down by the lonely.

Castle sand–yellow, by lagoon–wave come lapping,
Lido–solemn saw the sacking.

So went wind–carried whispers :
dock into shores of bays North Sea,
where fishermen’s children know of geometry.

Don’t you know that all swallows go to caves.

Our atheist generation of hermits finds
those empty alters of Mountainside,
filled with icons over stones’ time,
there where no faith’s God can reside.

Swallows find the highest piece of arch on entrance
of the temple in a halfway–up–the–mountain cave.

Its eight-sided base is made of clay,
three steps climb the way to enter
to where yellow tulips spill in excess, from vases.

Active Stalagmite

In lakes, swim fish of equal tint to water,
endemic to a cave, underground with gemstones.

On lake’s islands : clock towers and high, freestanding columns rising,
where light from ceiling’s crack of window
tints to honeycomb castle–walls’ yellow.

Bears, had therein improvised a cemetery
so left bones intact in that dark sanctuary.
Their kind leaves remains, to become as works by Penone.

Ancient horns stand tall and twisting
from when prayed,
prayed to Mary, a tiny, blonde lady.
So stepped the unicorn into her mille–fleur tapestry.

Seemingly from nothing, sculptures appear.
In their standing matter, sustain cave’s tears :
through Saturnian time, calcium yellows drops that it rides to floor.

Between horns of cave, freestanding :
a structure formed by water, in the image of the mushroom.

Kite

Someone was flying a kite, from Island Rock
directing the decline and rise of its rainbow’s flashing —
an artificial seabird ; the beauty of her species.

I found you at a meeting with an itinerant interpreter of dreams.
Sundown, you left with everything you could need.

Kite built a nest and left its eggs
top–roof the temple of Elena
where gull–custodians swept by wing, white marble.

Eggs of kite–technology incubated
lucid–dreams on Leda.

Kerosene that cut the light on bird’s whale–watch intuition.
With gulls, I have been custodian at the temple of Elena.

House gull–swept of anxieties,
left there clear–exposed : geometry.

Lines–along, points are places that for pause be valid.

See, how rope pulled at each end of an argument
makes to arise tension, deep fiber–filament.

The calico–kitten whom no one wants,
last one left in the cardboard–box,
Sad One sphinx–sits its acceptance of loss.

Sekhmet sent pious flies to pray ‘round the pits of equestrian eyes.
No one wants it to be–gin but hor–ses are get–ting scared again.

In one wind–swept room, moths strayed from a passing plague,
drawn to an abandoned harp in the corner,
flew up to each note–point in turn.
Picked out Maneros : hymn on the strings.

Consider that I would now be half
machine and half animal.

If it is a freedom, it will show you to actualizing those desires
that of no second party can collaboration be required.

The Harlequin will cease to be,
when the many, we become, in its image, free.

To the calico–kitten whom no one wants,
to the last one left in the cardboard–box :
From big cats, stars–up, you will learn to talk.

A freedom will make of you a lone dancing–figure
pulled by the North Star to the Great Bear’s hot plate.

The calico kitten was returned to the box.
Yellow–tape tied to a signal its loss.

To souls sent to the heaven
where bad–luck–litters arrive in flocks :
When Medicine comes, She swims your heart,
whole–being through, exhales, inhales her art.
Life–resuscitating, all in one : high sire’s breath,
single–stroke embrace of Jaguar Mother’s big cat tongue.

If it is a freedom, you will not miss it,
the ones that do not mock or limit anyone–else’s.

Shadow the translucent bear lost when he was charging,
now runs the Tundra, isolated.

Ice–below are floors of sea
and mollusk–walls who let them be.

Bear without his shadow, on pearls–pastel stands :
Arctic’s iridescent sand.

Let to the Boreas wind, conjoined the poles a kite :
the Southern Cross.