noticing

I, who notice things, cicada shells, dusk. Eyes gathering into a glance. Who notice the scars on a woman's back. Your DNA spiraling into a stellar map. Child skipping stones in a merengue rhythm. The lake that became an eye and I noticed the dragonfly on your arm. You found a warm spot in the waters. Noticed that cantor picking Wild Susans before a party. I'm the one who notices a vaudeville aside about chopped liver. Noticed the friend named 121, after a psalm. Noticed she was alive, now she's gone. A partner in psychological thinking — a stroke made her fall like an oak. And I went to the funeral and noticed how almost no one was there. So this is the story of noticing her husband weeping, and no wheat. Because he can't eat that wheat.



August Tango

You're a forgiving cypress,
write songs named after our arguments.
We peel the mango in sultry twilight.
Lips before a thunderstorm.
Comes tomorrow, a door opens.
Luminous text-faces speak.
The caring moment after the operation —
that happened a year ago.
Brooding.
The luminous flesh of the mango.
There's a voice inside my voice.
It comes when no one watches.
An August tango remembers.
It was a year ago, and the operation lingers
in its effects.
Once we were taking our son to the rotating tire
at the playground.
Now he's peeling mangos for us.



Ripening Text

An unexhilaration becomes the theme of heat-driven hours.
taking in the laundry, a dragonfly designates cherry tomatoes.
reading sci fi all afternoon in humid mist, spaceships permeate the atmosphere.
my son has shared his book with me.
the radio continues its silence in the glare of noon.
this mood of unexhilaration becomes a dragonfly's hovering lore.
moons from a planet's landscape; heat-driven messages.
wanting to write with a thirst for memory.
the palm trees of Florida tremble.
we harbor in our voices a savvy, a warning, an escape plan.
once long ago I would talk with my mother. I was an adolescent.
we spoke often of Faulkner, Hemingway.
the oaks of Massachusetts quiver in invisible breezes.



when a youth speaks

when a youth speaks of injustices, on steamy afternoons, my will to censor words spoken weakens.  on steamy afternoons, our battles of will
emerge, and we think of hills of wildflowers, juxtaposed with photographs of our great grandparents, there on the wall.  it is pleasant to be useful, to support those in trouble.  the man who helps us has a limp in his voice. a careful rendering of a jazz tune, the stillness in the air in august.  so he, the youth, speaks of the terrible right to carry guns — that injustice — assassins gathering at public forums, and i listen, as my mother listened when The King was shot, and I began to work with children.  we think of a spider making its way down a wall, we think of the things that are pleasant.



"all or nothing at all" *

we harbor resentments, but they are imprisoned like improvising sparrows, and we let them go. under certain laws, we move like strangers, cautiously, warily.  to pluck a lilac from a grave; the sun turns fiery and crimson angels shoot out.  an alternative love song is one in which a man stands vulnerable in the driveway, before heading to the boat.  there's a profound silence, then the silence before a thunderstorm.  an equally tender caress remains in the threshold, hovering like a protective son.

* name of an old jazz tune



Drawing Strength

I could understand this fiery wanting.  my ability so fragile, the air a sultry face.  to want the plum tree, to want her dreams, her blaze, her plum tree mission.  and there is also the mission of the brother, calling.  here he walks down city streets, striding, his voice and his piano.  sands shifting, you, my lover, were strong, but are caught up in an illness.  prayer for cure, for deep strength.  as our son lends me friable texts ripe with wizards.  here's to a tigerlily, a daughter with my friend, grins.  and here's to the melon, its juice, the moon.

Ekleksographia:
Wave Three

May, 2010

Poetry

Judy Katz-Levine

Judy Katz-Levine's recent chapbook, When Performers Swim, The Dice Are Cast, was published in 2009 by Ahadada. She is also the author of two full-length collections, Ocarina and When The Arms Of Our Dreams Embrace. Her poems have appeared over the years in Fence, The Sun, Salamander, Origin 2008 and many other magazines and anthologies. She gives readings in the Boston area.