POETRY: DANIELA ELZA

FORECASTS
​
​it is how  our footsteps alter              the flurries
how we move through the breeze
 
                                                          in the boughs of our hope.
 
when time stops           in the sideways glance
you will find me                         in the missed heartbeat
 
see me                 in the many moons of your longing
and furies.
 
                    in the place where words        fail us
with a sharp               astute  parlance            and
 
war is upon us and        the sun sets black
                                                               under the yoke of
 
                            a darkening century
             
again
                            we are going nowhere          fast.
 
                                                in storms and tornados
of prognosis and forecasts
 
                             over a horizon of planted crosses
 the weather turns     passive aggressive on us.
 
and there is no way  we can say                     such things
                                                                      about the weather
 
as we forget how to move through              the elements
that we are.   
 
it’s up to       you and I               what we’ll do
in this tortured           oil-spilled         winter.
 
                                          where                 even in sleep
loneliness             alters us                re-interprets us
                                                                                      holds us
hostage.         
 
                           how     I even begin to smile at people
in my dreams.
 
how a little bit of light brings nuance to the shutter
in  the prolonged exposure photography         of  grief
 
where the struggling light   shreds            
the clouds of our sorrow
                                                   into the rags of tomorrow
 
and
of course       
              you will also find me here    waiting
                                                                                     for spring.
 
​

​Acknowledgements:
This poem was inspired by the poem Angst by Alexander Block (1880-1921) and it was published in Ping Pong: An Art and Literary Journal of the Henry Miller Memorial Library (Big Sur, California, 2014).


​Daniela Elza lived on three continents before immigrating to Canada in 1999. Her poetry collections are the weight of dew (2012), the book of It (2011), milk tooth bane bone (2013), and the broken boat (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2020). slow erosions (a chapbook written in collaboration with poet Arlene Ang) is coming out with Collusion Books (2020). Daniela also has essays forthcoming in The Queen’s Quarterly and Riddle Fence.