About

Laurie Giardino

   …born in Paterson …would have died in Totowa …spent many years in Queens

            …currently resides in the Hudson Valley

Three generations of women in my family before we became Americans. My Grandmother, Great-Grandmother & Great-Great-Grandmother (with Uncle Ralph) Compobasso, Italy 1906.

Three generations of women in my family before we became Americans.
My Grandmother, Great-Grandmother & Great-Great-Grandmother (with Uncle Ralph) Compobasso, Italy 1906.

The Paterson Falls, 1959 Photo taken by my father the year I was born.

The Paterson Falls, 1959
Photo taken by my father the year I was born.

My Refrigerator, 1984 When I moved out of this apartment they put my picture on the milk carton

My Refrigerator, 1984
When I moved out of this apartment they put my picture on the milk carton.

My TV Set, 1994

My TV Set, 1994

 A Few Days After the EquinoxYou prepare for the first freeze
and what you cannot save.
Persephone returned, the chill
back in her bones. Eurydice did not.

You travel across oceans,
to Bali and Istanbul, waves
of faces you haven’t met.

In the markets, baskets
of spice, fruit with names
that feel strange in your mouth.

At home, you watch your garden
grow dingy in its dirt,
withered at the season’s end.

This is where you close
the door, light the stove
while the moon teases outside.

In photographs you keep
those you have lost, memories
tilled in better stretches,
grown against the frost.

The winter wind will bring
too much of the past
to tend. But plant a cold-weather
harvest—carrots and kale.
Sow a little light for later.

From: Joannie Stangeland (joannieks@msn.com)
Sent: Fri 12/14/07 12:51AM
To: llgg2@hotmail.com