A Love Supreme by Richard-Yves Sitoski

July 19, 2022
Poet name: A Love Supreme Poem name: Richard-Yves Sitoski Poem: the first hot air balloon was thought to be a monster when it landed in a field, coming from the daylit moon, the trees not looking away, they never do when challenged, but thrusting dark fingers up to barely graze the gondola, occupants hitting hard amid the rye, jostled, flung clear like drops from a dog’s fur, while a kid on his back lies watching, a witness to the future without knowing, sees it float as light as Coltrane in a state of flow to hit the dirt in silence, sees it deflate, spread in a puddle, dying beast from the heavens coughing up angels, while he thinks of his father, his father struck dumb when asked where the air goes when it gives up being wind. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Richard-Yves Sitoski Richard-Yves Sitoski (he/him) is a songwriter, performance poet, and the 2019-2023 Poet Laureate of Owen Sound, Ontario, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. His work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Train, The Fiddlehead, Bywords.ca, and elsewhere. He is interim artistic director of the Words Aloud festival. He has given performances in industrial ruins, has composed a chapbook in collaboration with earth worms, and has written verse on snow with biodegradable dye. 2021 John Newlove Award winner. No Sleep ‘til Eden (Ginger Press, 2020). Co-editor, with Penn Kemp, of Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine (Pendas Productions/Laughing Raven Press, 2021).