a poem of mine from Peculiar Moods e-book...

...that I'm quite fond of (revised here).



as if music


Old men play chess within the waning day.
Muted summer voices sound in late air.
Children move with clumsy young bones
as flowers still bloom under the sun's cooling.

Lithuania breathes out its unseen ghosts.
They stand in lengthening shadows cast
by the gnarled limbs of witness trees.

Something is amiss in Lithuania.

Shapes of absence in this green still park
cast unease upon the older living brows.
Of course the forms of silence aren't there
but are merely voids as if boles in time.

There used to be something like music
in the vigor of villages in Lithuania --
the rhythm of vital gestures and melody
cascading in dark curls of familial hours.

Look! That large gazebo in the park.
Fresh white paint covers memories
of violins, cellos, and a Yiddish tango.
But something persists and ghostly sways
across floorboards while the flowers fade.

Soon twilight brings an unheard revel
of dreams undreamt, of unlived fevers.


* * *


Bands played and people danced in 1948,
on Israel's great day of independence!
Melodies erupting, cascading from silence.

Laughter and smiles and tears that broke
early new light into flung color of rose petals.