ZG Tomaszewski

Poetry

Author of All Things Dusk, Mineral Whisper, River Nocturne, and several limited edition coffee table books, including Korakia and Stone Poems, ZG Tomaszewski is a gardener who enjoys arranging flowers with his wife, and some days can be heard playing the vibraphone.

 

Alphabet

Grandma’s feeding ravens again. Tools are missing from the barn. One day on a walk I overheard the birds chatting: Let’s make of our language a window and through the window a world . . . feeling the small heat of life lifting from the branch in fluted sparks a couple of Shakespearean jesters laughing as grandpa searches for the hammer wanting to nail the shadows down.

I often wonder at what the ravens overhead say as they perch or pass by. On a particular occasion, I stood long enough and heard what the italics in the poem represent. Everything was built around this experience. The poem’s title ‘Alphabet’ came at the end of writing the poem, as a way to enter into the shadow language of ravens and our place among them.