Philis Levin
Prologue / Epilogue
We think we are at Colonus
When we are at Thebes.
The mother is a child, the father is a child.
And everyone is weeping from blind eyes.
Who are those trailing figures. A man leaning on a girl Or a woman leading her son.
If only he had known, if only she had known. What was done never would be done.
Do you see Antigone -
Wasn't she being questioned lately,
Too sure of her virtue to summon a defense.
A week ago a father shot himself
After his daughter
Killed herself with his gun.
The mother kept rocking in her chair.
Someone opened a door and found them there. Witness to a fall as great as Troy.
Another horse rolled in yesterday. Did you hear it squeaking, can you smell The sweat of those who wait inside.
(From the collection of poems, Afterimage, 1995 forhcoming)
SPIRITS IN THE CITY OF WOMEN 103
Out of Chaos
No wonder some prefer a narrow hall, A single room where doubts die Until possibility, that odd flower, Returns its face.
The doors close and open every day And every day we hurtle toward the city.
Today I saw the usual human disaster:
Head in her chest, legs pocked with pink wounds,
Fingers wrapped tight around a white handbag.
Then the subway doors opened and children Piled in: the whole car filled with their high Broken music.
At the next stop they all poured out; The car was vacant, solemn, the air Settled and clear - but she was still there.
Outside a lilac bush blows to the wind,
And everywhere one looks A pre-Socratic flux Streams down avenues Of taxicabs and radios,
Mortality's parade crowned with neon and chrome -
As if we were beats evolving toward a sentence That breaks and disperses before we arrive At the city we promised to build.
(From the collection of poems, Afterimage, 1995 forthcoming)
SPIRITS IN THE CITY OF WOMEN 103
A Song
Deep in summer I saw an owl With maggots swarming through its flesh; In autumn through bright hills of leaves I found a bird with body torn; I fed the deer and let the bread Fall to the ground into the dust As winter hardened the earth's crust; I found their antlers in the grass Beside the smallest flower of spring.
In joy and terror I woke each day To meet this strange familiar friend, Silent, playful, shrieking, holy; In joy and terror I woke each day To study its face with eyes and hands, And it was soon my private study; With joy and terror we fill each day, In joy and terror the mouth shall sing: The earth in love and death is our ring.
(From the collection of poens, Temples and Fields, 1988)
Phillis Levin (USA): Poet, associate professor of English at The University of Maryland. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 1989, Poets for Life, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Yorker, etc. Author of Temples and Fields (1988). A forthcoming collection The Afterimage will be published in October 1995.
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