Tag: 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
“Two Zinnias” poem – “Inside the old guest house of the Notre Dame de Sion, Ein Karem, Jerusalem” painting by Helen Bar-Lev, Israel
“Inside the old guest house of the Notre Dame de Sion, Ein Karem, Jerusalem”
copyright Helen Bar-Lev
Two Zinnias
Two zinnias in a glazed vase
clipped by nuns’ careful scissors,
are the only decoration in this spartan room
in a convent in Jerusalem
but it is clean, the mattress comfortable
flagstone floors, yellow- and red-ochre,
have been polished to a gleam by passing shoes
these one hundred years, even more
We have returned to Jerusalem
after an absence of some months –
a jittery city, it is more intolerable than ever
horns constantly honk, faces do not smile
congestion and pollution, agitation,
congregate in its centre
together with beggars,
street musicians, religious Jews, Arabs
an incongruent conglomeration
which beckons in a manner I cannot fathom
and repulses with vengeance,
as though one reaction triggers its opposite,
a contradiction of emotions
that is disturbing considering I lived here
for so long and loved it with passion,
wrote love poems in dedication,
painted its landscapes from every angle
until my ability wilted and the brush
could no longer respond to my commands
So that earlier today when I walked
through this city in the heat of its summer
and watched dusk extinguish the gold from its stones,
I noticed a nostalgia for it – for the once-Jerusalem,
almost expecting the present
to disappear behind a curtain
and lo! enter the Jerusalem of old,
the city I knew and yearned to return to,
smaller, happier, more beautiful
These are my thoughts now, late,
in this sanctuary amidst the city’s insanity,
this secluded quaint convent,
where quail and jay and gay flowers reside,
whose energies are lovely, light,
a place that does not disturb
nor disappoint my memories
While the two zinnias in the vase
blink red and pink
in the heat of the night
and soothe me
© 6.2007 Helen Bar-Lev
immaginepoesia 
