Two Poems by Geri Rosenzweig


 

Prayer For Orpheus


Lord of the estuary, what the river bears this morning
could be the head of Orpheus, grown mossy,

but still singing on the muscular currents, singing past
the old fishing villages, the faded boats and torn nets, slipping

past arbors where light, lithe as a dancer, weaves
among dry vines; he floats down the shining ladder of a weir,

frail, famished as a cloud swaying above wine soaked columns,
sings a modest song, shaking a little beneath his crown

of yellow stars as the sun pulls its red fan
over sleepy stones and roots of grass dig down.

Lord, hold your hand on the tide when he arrives
at your blue door, place the lotus of honey in his mouth

as wind lifts evening willows and mercy calls out,
faint as the bleat of goats picking their way among the shadows.

 


If I Turn Up The Collar, And The Light Is Good


Time that buffs everything to a burnished
sheen, let me keep this soft jacket, its green

warmth and downy pockets in whose depths
lie the silver change of his days.

If I turn up the collar, and the light is good,
from a distance I look young, and slightly tough,

which won't be a bad thing should he go ahead of me
to the end of the bridge the sage calls this world.

I'll need that "better not mess with me" look,
an older woman alone at dusk, snow on the move,

my short wave radio on the shelf
crackling with static like signals from another planet.

 

GERI ROSENZWEIG is a regular contributor to ForPoetry.com.  Her forthcoming book, White Sandals (Sulphur River Literary Review) is scheduled for publication in 2003. She was also the featured poet in Sulphur River Literary Review this Fall. She won the First Prize BBC (British Broadcasting Company) Wildlife Poetry Competition for her poem,  "Osprey".  It appeared in the print issue of Wildlife Magazine in August, and on the Web, www.bbc.co.uk, mid-August 2000. Recently, she won the Rueben Rose Poetry Award in "Voices Israel".

Geri Rosenzweig was born and raised in Ireland.  She worked as an RN in Ireland and London before coming to New York. Her poems have been published in such journals as Verse, The Nebraska Review, Greensboro Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, Christian Science Monitor, Poet Lore, ThreeCandles.org, Confrontation, and elsewhere.  Her First bookof poems, (click title) Under The Jasmine Moon, was published by HMS Press, London, Ontario, Canada.  Her chapbook of poems, (click title) Half The Story, was published by March Street Press, North Carolina. She has completed two poetry residencies at Warren Wilson College.  Geri Rosenzweig is also a member of the Hudson Valley Writer's Center, where she has taught poetry workshops.

Click here to read Geri Rosenzweig's essay, The Music of What Happens

Click here to read more of Geri Rosenzweig's poety in ForPoetry.com.


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