Patterns of Breath
Helen Bar-Lev
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest 2007 (view all the winners)
Most Highly Commended
It is evening and chilly and I am walking home
standing now at the intersection of Agron and King George
I wait for the traffic lights to change
engaged in nothing more intellectual
than observing the patterns my breath makes on the night air
An ambulance streaks, its sirens hysterical
an over-hormoned motorcycle blasts,
a moving van huffs loudly with the strain of its weight
and the reluctant-to-change traffic light permits me
to take in this vehicular confusion
I am about to cross over to Paris Square
where the women in black stand every Friday,
demanding peace from Jerusalem's stone ears,
when my eyes are drawn to the left, the east
down Agron Street, past the taxi stand, past the Italian convent,
the American consulate, the Isaiah House monastery,
the bicycle repair shop, the Moslem cemetery
towards the silhouette of the Old City
And there emerging from the rooftops is a full, pale orange moon
so huge my perspective is skewed
I mistake it at first for a street lamp or spotlight gone dim;
it is special, exquisite, gossamer
as though hiding its shyness behind a veil
The traffic light has not yet changed—
I want to tap the man next to me, to phone a loved-one, to share my awe
I will the sirens to be silent, the vehicles to disappear;
it is a sacrilege to view this moon amidst the heavy noisy traffic as I now do
I need to be alone with this orange moon,
perhaps on a mountain top, with blackness and serenity surrounding me
perhaps on the seashore, to see it reflected in the water
or in the forest, tucked into trees, snug in Nature,
I need to breathe this moon into my being,
to hold onto this beauty forever
The traffic light has now realized it is time to change;
I cross the street and tuck the moon inside my special file
of marvelous memories
and wonder if any other person in haste to get someplace
has paused for a moment to behold this moon
mystical, graceful, rising magnificent over Jerusalem
