“My Love is Like a Little Blue Lada” & “Three Stones” by Ryan Keating

My Love Is Like A Little Blue Lada

My love is like a little blue Lada

packed to the ceiling with melons

pressed against the windows

and stacked on the dashboard,

rolling along the mountain road

through vineyards past picnic spots

under pines twisting high up the hills

impossibly full and moving steadily.

I pass it going just a little faster

but you aren’t with me on this drive

and you can’t eat melons

because they make your lips swell

and I remember that slowing down

enough to let it catch up to me

impossibly full and moving steadily.

Three Stones

A young stone in a brown sling revolves

Above smooth shoulders wondering why

The weight of the world is much lighter

Than they say it is- and he releases

The Earth flung fast into curved space

Rotates to consider the sun unphased

And looks away another cold evening

In autumn years and finally sets hard

In the broad brow of a humbled man 

Holding gray his head in weary hands

Deep regret and the impact of time

Strike a crater to put the dark to rest

Ryan Keating is a writer, teacher, and winemaker on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Saint Katherine Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, Dreich, Vocivia, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in English and Turkish.