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Contests : Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2008 : Highly Commended
TRUE ROOTS
To the left of me and to my right
apple trees regal in March bloom,
in front of me a Sabbath sun,
setting hazy this tranquil evening
As I intrude through this enchantment
I pause, and for a second,
as the wind whistles around me
and different birdchirps sweeten the air,
I stand in infinite serenity, and in this moment,
I have become one with the trees,
blooming eternal, rooted in this orchard
When I gather my soul from this stupor,
exit the orchard and continue towards home,
last year's dried leaves tumble behind me,
sent by the wind, rustling on the path,
like animal pitter-patters and I turn around startled,
wondering if they have been sent to retrieve me,
to remind me that my roots on Earth
are there in the orchard
amongst the mute trees
in the silence and the Sabbath
and the hazy setting sun
Come back beckon the leaves,
yet I, forever the alien,
ignore them
and return home
This poem won a Highly Commended award in the 2008 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Helen Bar-Lev received a $100 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Helen Bar-Lev
Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York City in 1942, has lived in Israel almost 40 years. She holds a degree in Anthropology from California State University, Northridge. Since 1976 Helen has devoted herself to art: painting, teaching and poetry. From 1989-2001 she was a member of the Safad Artists' Colony in the Upper Galilee where she had her own gallery. She has lived in Jerusalem intermittently for many years. In January 2007 she and Johnmichael Simon moved to Metulla, the northernmost town in Israel.
To date Bar-Lev has participated in 82 exhibitions, including 30 one-person shows, with another scheduled for the Artists House, Haifa, opening March 21, 2009. Her poems and paintings have appeared in many online journals such as The Other Voices International Project, The Coffee Press Journal, Boheme Magazine, The Poetry Bridge, Sketchbook, River Bones Press, The Hypertexts, Palabras-Press, Poetry Super Highway, Gostinaia, and Poetica. Print publications include Meeting of the Minds Journal, Voices Israel anthologies, Manifold Magazine of New Poetry (U.K.), Lucidity Poetry Journal, Harvest International, Poesy first international issue, For Loving Precious Beast, Ibbetson Street 21, The Rogue Scholars, Magnapoets, Eden Waters Press, Windsor ReView, Ascent Aspirations, and Deronda Review. Her work also appears in the anthologies Across The Long Bridge and Sailing in the Mist of Time, both anthologies of award-winning poetry from the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest and the Margaret Reid Poetry Contest.
Cyclamens and Swords with poems of Israel by Helen and Johnmichael Simon was published in 2007 by Ibbetson Press of Boston, Mass. and may be ordered from the authors at hbarlev@netvision.net.il. Her watercolor paintings and sketches are featured throughout the book.
Helen is a member of Voices Israel English Poetry Society and The Israel Artists and Sculptors Association. She is the global correspondent in Israel for the Sketchbook, an online Journal for Eastern and Western Short Forms. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Voices Israel Annual Anthology and Senior Editor of Cyclamens and Swords Publishing.
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