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Matthew Caretti

Of Light and Wind

As a way of not forgetting, I often head down a little-traveled path beside a creek. For most, it is too remote an amble in this vast park or, these days, too muddy. But for me it is home. Quiet and isolated. Just a bit of the countryside where it is not.

winter sun
eclipse
of mistletoe

As I weave between dank forest and the water, I am distracted by a glare near a distant bend in the trail. Drawing up beside buff tallgrass, I find the source—an empty tin can.

white swan
into . . . out of
winter's mist

Handling it gently, but I add to the crumples and creases begun by the original owner. Now folded into my jacket pocket, its balmy flatness becomes yet another reminder. This constant desire to dazzle, to procure and quickly discard. And a slow veer toward something different.

city living
hearing the tram
as wind

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About the Author

Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2017, he won the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for Harvesting Stones.