Stefanie Bennett, ex-blues singer and musician has published several books of
poetry, a novel and a libretto and worked with Arts Action For Peace. Poems
have appeared in Shot Glass Journal, Poetry Pacific, Poetic Diversity, The Fib
Review and others. Stefanie’s most recent titles – ‘Black Spring’ – Ginninderra
Press; ‘The Vanishing’ – Walleah Press and ‘Blanks From The Other World’
[due May-June] are available from Amazon. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/
Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia.
HEARTS THAT DIE YOUNG for Vittoria Anna-Maria [Stefanie Bennett]
I clutched the vision
Of the magnolia,
Fine as pollen...
The coloured halo
Of your hair.
Some hearts die young
Without wilt or piety.
These are the ones
Mater dulcissima
I offer you now.
And this you’d known all along.
You took me walking
As a child, and through
Child eyes you pointed
To the Imera’s silken flowing...
Ever young – “forever there”
You said – and as I fingered
Blood oranges
By the seller’s cart
And asked the whereabouts
Of day-stars and hermetic charts
Your smile fell upon
The Madonie peaks. There was
No failed mystery in your language.
And now I clutch at visions; I’ve work
To do. Sometimes with
Arrows that pierce
Heart and paper. Sometimes with
Rivers seeping, changing course.
But memory, you remind me,
Is landscape enough.
Scars – mended lines of living.
I raise mid-aged eyes
And the street of clouds
Rest on a field of white magnolias
“Ever there.” Your final
Word – Mater dulcissima.
It must be so!
Fine as pollen, as haloed hair.
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