Deborah Leipziger

 

The Northern Lights are Fading

Remind me of the colors of the Northern Lights
Refresh the view
Repaint the image

Green and pulsating like a heartbeat you tell me

But this is your memory, not mine

We had gone out
heeding the call:
go out into that good night

The lights begin in the horizon
beaming out

Sometimes purple yellow
the memory of a bruise

Sometimes green
emerald growing paler

Sometimes orange
pink like the afterglow of thunder

Memory is a painter

 

 

Light Time

What is the half-life of grief?
Grief is not measured by clock or meter
No, Grief’s metronome oscillates

A pendulum heaving, breathing
Between spiral galaxies

Light years, light days
Grief is tidal 

Accept these paltry tokens
Arriving on the waves of Grief:
Tiny shells, fragments of past and future

 

 

 

Daffodil Waves

I.
“The colline were covered in daffodils,”
my Nonna tells me.

II.
Green grows yellow
with swollen seeds.
How suddenly they open
releasing their egg yolk trumpets.

III.
I am the school girl immersing in daffodil waves.
No, those are my daughters amidst the blooms.  

How quickly change arrives
unbidden.

 

Published in Salamander, #37, Fall/Winter 2014.

 

 

 

 

Deborah Leipziger is a poet, author, and advisor on sustainability. Her chapbook, Flower Map, was published by Finishing Line Press (2013). Two of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Born in Brazil, Ms. Leipziger is the author of several books on sustainability and human rights, some of which have been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese. Her poems have been published in the UK, US, Israel and the Netherlands, in such magazines and journals as Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, POESY, Wilderness House Review, and Amethyst Review. She is the co-founder of Soul-Lit, an on-line poetry magazine.  https://flowermap.net/