Zev Levinson(poem) "Two Poems" in Lit Pot

VAL PAINTING

Poetry by Zev Levinson

The house Portuguese yellow, red
and blue, the brush and her hair
flecked with wet color and time,
sun between high branches
and the baby's tears drying in autumn.
I sweep leaves, the cat rolls over
as she does when she feels good,
and we forget what has come before
this day.
I unwrap the present,
bound with clear air and sticks--
beneath this expert clothing
is a heart made of mud, pulsing
as earth makes a pass around
her navel, an old story brought to light.

Disciples have gathered all around this hillside
with its small house and its garden;
one kneels unseen by the tomato vine,
while another crosses the footbridge
over our dry creek, and the others
are as salamanders in mulch, sleeping
bats in the eaves: tending simple things,
our words exchanged like water slipping
past rocks in a summer's river.

So this is the business of life.
We know the paint won't stay,
but are content to cover the old brown boards.
Bright flags are we and our lives.
A warm breeze is lifting my words
and moving her golden hair.

§ § §

Zev Levinson lives behind the Redwood Curtain in Humboldt County, California. He teaches at Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods, and to younger students through California Poets in the Schools.

You can reach him at zevlevinson@hotmail.com

This piece was first published in INK POT #1 - 2003, a literary journal.
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	A SPLASH OF LIGHT SAILING SOUTHEAST Poetry by Zev Levinson The language of love is a boatride out to sea. We cannot hear each other over the waves, we passengers of the islands. But a voice is singing clear through wind and spray, through spume throwing rainbows. This boat of Babel carries faces whose tongues we cannot know--and understanding is easy. Each of us is thrown together, our craft leaping, foam in our different eyes, a splash of light sailing southeast. Conversation cannot be, so she leans in sleep across the man's back; the Grecian lovers have their way, only they hear their words; and in the bow, in the sun, in headwind our blonde goddess sways and knows. She has summoned the land to find us, simple folk become motion and so deified. Talk is not of whom, nor of how but of what we are becoming on this ship, vessel that carries us into the song, voyage to the sun, a gesture by some lion-- like being that roars a path down blue waters and bright rills, bringing these bodies back together, wishing us. § § §