Category: Helen Bar-Lev
“WHITE SOLSTICE” (poem)-“SNOW IN THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM” (painting) by Helen Bar-Lev, Israel
” SNOW IN THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM “
White Solstice
If I were a sailor
I’d write a poem
about the forlorn song
of fog horns
If I were a pilot
I’d write about
the blinding whiteness
of clouds
As an Inuit
I’d describe the snow
in a thousand words
of white
If I were an elf
I’d tell about
the gossamer wings
of fairies
But I am a woman
white of hair
remembering past winters
on this solstice day
“The Season Sings a Song of Autumn” poem and painting by Helen Bar-Lev, Israel
The Season Sings a Song of Autumn
Squill gone
crocus now
a toad croaks
herons hover above the Hula
a snake pauses,
slithers into crevice,
hibernates
on the rocks
hyrax scamper
escape hawk
at five night encroaches
rain approaches
a bat flaps utterly silent
silhouetted by a full moon
breaking off now from the mountain
like a balloon released from its moorings
the willow is old and leafless
its limbs a skeleton
in the garden
the old cat buried beneath it
the clementine drops its fruit
the grapevine withers
apples, harvested, depart for market
and we, white of hair,
creased with wrinkles,
wait for winter
like the willow
like the cat
C 11.2009 Helen Bar-Lev
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