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A SLEEK HEAD AMONG REEDS
for
Michael, 1930-2000
There is the bird, winging it into the reeds.
This has nothing to do with you
boxed in the ground with Irish stones at your head.
There is the flash of bronze coverts flickering
like disbelief in the cold light, or like my checkered handkerchief
waving good bye in the rain.
The bird's name is easy to look up, I have the book
of lifelike drawings, a sleek head among reeds,
descriptions of a voice at evening.
I'll look it up later, why it got here ahead of spring.
This has nothing to do with your blue door,
or the key, last time I looked, shining in the lock.
TAKE WHAT IS OFFERED
I was careless, taking for granted
the colors of the peach
when a voice called from the prow of
a boat;
it will never taste like this again,
the air,
the hunger of hills, leaves turning
on their stems, the red/gold fruit
plucked just for you
from the highest branch by other
hands
searching for ripeness.
Take what is offered, eat slowly,
there by the window, in light revising
from moment to moment the texture of the
river.
As juice spilled onto my tongue,
seeped into the cuffs of my shirt,
I heard the blind hull turn away
from the bank, saw the reeds shiver.
PASSING THE TIGER
It's always midnight when the old
man leaves the card tables and finds
his way home, a little drunk,
under stars big as cantaloupes,
his wine flask empty, thin cloak flapping
about his knees as he leans
into the wind, wondering if the fire
in his stove has gone out.
In the old Chinese poems,
there is a great purity in the song
he sings under his breath
as he passes the tiger
on the mountain road.
AFTER TORAH STUDY
I was thinking of Isaac
lifted out of the warm tent of his life
into the cold swoop of a dream, like the fish
in the eagle's yellow talons this winter morning.
The branch shook beneath the visitation
of bronze streaked wings,
hungry light flashed on the scales and bloody
strings of a life fluttering in the wind,
on the famished beak and glossy
shoulders of the eagle
before it drifted in the sky's distance
and the branch sprang back,
like the rush of breath in Sarah's throat
as she awakened from her dream into ordinary light,
sound of her son's voice
echoing in her mouth.
GERI ROSENZWEIG
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, THREE CANDLES, 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.
ForPoetry
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