Falling World
by
Lynn Lyman Trombetta
“Clear poem by clear poem, Falling World limns an ever-widening circle of connections: familial, marital,
earthly, cultural, political. As woven by Lynn Trombetta’s attentive and
particular vision, these spun threads become part of poetry's great
parachute, which makes our ceaseless falling not only an inevitable fate,
but also our unique humanity and art.”
— Jane Hirshfield
LYNN LYMAN TROMBETTA is a third-generation
Sonoma County native who lives with her husband on a former dairy ranch on
the outskirts of Santa Rosa, California. She often finds inspiration for
her poetry in the wildlife and natural beauty of that landscape. Her
honors include the D. L. Emblen Award from Santa Rosa Junior College, an
award from the journal Americas Review, and three Pushcart Prize
nominations. Trombetta teaches poetry workshops at Angela Center in Santa
Rosa. Falling World is her first full collection
of poems.
View from the Headland:
Hare Creek Beach,
Mendocino
Except for the gulls, which lift
in languid curves from the
sand
and swing back down,
they are the only ones on the
beach,
this teenage couple
cutting their afternoon classes.
She is ten feet ahead of him, her shoes
already off, thrown down.
Her long skirt
gathered up to her thighs as she enters the
sea.
Enters it, as if it had called her,
her white legs flashing in
the sun.
And he runs to catch up, puts his hands
on her shoulders and drives
her
through the surf. He's smitten and loopy.
He veers off,
flapping, circles back
like a gull, lassoes her around the neck
with
his arms, around the waist, twirling himself
around and around the long
stem of her body,
pulling and pulling her to him.
And she doesn't
object, she leans right in
as they stagger like drunks
to a warm
pocket of sand and fall in.
Do they know they are this beautiful?
His goofy, tender urgency. Her
calm
regard and disregard of him as she sits
staring out at the
waves, her hand shading
her eyes. As he kneels now, before
her,
trying to be the only object on her horizon.
When they kiss, when their faces rise
to the kiss, I have to look
away, though
the sea is still rolling, the gulls still
crying.
Though the day, it seems should screech
to a halt, all its
bright engines jumping their tracks,
this moment held out, separate
from time.
But the waves are still blue, the waves
are still pulling and
pulling at the sand,
they touch and touch again. The sun is
shining,
and he's coming back to her for more, more kisses,
leaning
over her for more, more of the same.
Earthworms
In spring when the garden is sliced and sheared
like fudge, when the
earth is scooped,
glistening and sweet as jam on a plate, they glide
out of that dark
confection, shocking
in their pink nakedness, their tender lengths
stark and gleaming as
sex. The sleek tubes
of their bodies are all undulation and probe,
all liquid under
pressure; their work
a gritty industry of digestion: to eat
the dank bones, the dull and
matted fur
of beasts and trees, the slathered leaves,
the vegetable marrow, the
sallow collapsed flesh
of everything fallen. Three million per acre,
they teem below our
feet, pulling their fine,
patient stitches through the thick cloth of ground,
piping all
matter through the glue of their guts,
binding the world once more to itself; bearing
its weight on the
delicate strands of their muscle.
To pass their way is to go down through the halls
of beginning, to
find the seed porch of spring.
The humble parents of green, the truly meek,
they shall inherit us.
They shall deliver us.
