Ray DiZazzo, USA
For Sean
There is a way of breathing
known to those who’ve
walked to the sky on stones and ice,
a way of opening the lungs
in the face of clouds and gasping in
their whiteness.
There is a way of premonition
in the jagged bend
of a blue crevasse,
of panic
boiling in the blood
at twenty thousand feet,
of grace
in boot print mud
drying on the peak
of an impossible summit.
Ray DiZazzo has published fiction, poetry and criticism in commercial and literary magazines, newspapers and books. Some of those publications include The Berkeley Poetry Review, Poetry Now, California Quarterly and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the Percival Roberts Book Award and the Rhysling Award. DiZazzo is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, whose works have been anthologised in The Alchemy of Stars, Burning with a Vision and Contemporary Literary Criticism. in addition, he has published four books of poetry: Clovin’s Head, Songs for a Summer Fly, The Water Bulls and The Revlon Slough: New and Selected Poems.
