Poem
SHJ Issue 16
Spring 2017
- Cooler evenings whisper a coming autumn.
Sun-faded prayer flags, yellow, red, blue,
slow dance along the garage eaves. Silence,
not a dog barking or airplane droning, and dusk
holds its breath, awaiting evening.
- Through open windows, a distant volley—
pop, pop, pop starts at dark, and I think fireworks
from the amusement park or stadium. And then,
a staccato of ack, ack, ack, and I realize: police range
shooting practice, echoing across the canyon.
- Names of cities march across my screen: Orlando, Dallas,
Baton Rouge, Baltimore, San Bernardino. Chanted refrains:
hands up, don’t shoot, open carry, all lives matter. This
soul-shattering has become the litany of our daily lives.
- How did this happen? Who will be next? Where?
Why? What shall become of us? I can’t breathe.
- Noises dissipate. . .except for the whistling tea kettle.
Nightly cup in hand, I walk out to the porch.
Strawberry moon rises. Peony shrub scatters fuchsia petals;
towering eucalyptus branches sway and rustle
in lamentation,
heads bowed, like weary old men praying
at the Wailing Wall.
[V’chayim aleinu v’al kol yoshvei tevel. And may life be renewed
for all who dwell on earth. V’imru, and say, Amen.]
—Selected for Honorable Mention in the competition for the Steve Kowit Poetry
Prize 2016, and first published in the San Diego Poetry Annual 2016-17
(Garden Oak Press, February 2017); appears here with permissions from both poet and
publisher.
is the author of Spoon (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Gateways:
Poems of Nature, Meditation and Renewal (Caernarvon Press, 2005). Her work also
appears in several journals and anthologies including: Blue Arc West, City
Works, Ekphrasis, Hunger and Thirst, Magee Park, Mamas and Papas, San Diego Poetry
Annual, San Diego Writers Ink, Serving House Journal, Snowy Egret, The Christian
Science Monitor, and The Reader.
Levinson moved to California in 1962 and to San Diego County in 1974, which she hopes
qualifies her as a “local.” Her poetry life began when she worked in
marketing at the Old Globe Theatre for several years. She believes
“retirement” is an active verb which propels her poetry, workshops,
volunteer work at KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM, and attendance at many theater and jazz
performances each year.