Day Moon

 white on white sky

the moon has

followed us into

the manly space

of day.  She

wears her veil modestly

peeping over us

like Lorelei

the river nymph.

We work on

without noticing.

While the birds

 while the birds slip into their songs

of betrayal and yearning

I listen with interpreter’s ears

hearing laments

and despondence reverberating

 

(I could be wrong in my translations)

 

I am vast in my wanting

I must be rid of this burden

carried for years

on the backs of my loves

now deposited in my throat

and burning

 

or like a bile risen

on Easter morning

after three decades

in a putrefying cave

inside my own chest

 

(and people wonder why I retract)

 

But I am risen this morning

with a tentative hope

like birdsong

away now in the distance

 

lila.p.levy, may 2018

faithness

my biggest fear

is dying faithless

and wrong about God’s

abandonment

my biggest fear

is that I will forget

who I am and whose I am

to kill another year of bunny hopes

my biggest fear

is remembering

that I was once loved wrongly

and deserved to be

my biggest fear

is leaving poems to mold

among my father’s in the attic

my son also, left, shirking in guilt

three generations old

my biggest fear

is that I will try my best

to love

and find instead rejection

or worse yet, indifference

John Lennon wrote that at its simplest

there are two things only:

Fear and Love

my biggest fear

is “faithness” has gone the way of Faith

leaving Love too narrow to convince us

of our worthiness

      lila pittard levy may 2018

while the birds

while the birds slip into their songs

of betrayal and yearning

I listen with interpreter’s ears

hearing laments

and despondence reverberating

(I could be wrong in my translations)

I am vast in my wanting

I must be rid of this burden

carried for years

on the backs of my loves

now deposited in my throat

and burning

or like a bile risen

on Easter morning

after three decades

in a putrefying cave

inside my own chest

(and people wonder why I retract)

But I am risen this morning

with a tentative hope

like birdsong

away now in the distance

lila.p.levy, may 2018

Goalie Bias

How many times as a leader must you decide which team member gets the opportunity to shine?  And when you don’t get to select all the players on your team, what’s your attitude towards the ones you didn't select? You’re an influence on performance, right? Think for a moment about how your attitude supports or destabilizes a key member of your team.

My husband plays men’s league hockey twice a week. These are friendly beer-buddy teams and most have played together and against each other for years. They cycle in new young talent as late-teen “boys” become brash enough to skate with the old dogs. My husband is a player/coach/manager for both of his teams as he’s the guy who confirms the roster and texts everyone endlessly on game days to make sure enough guys show up, thus avoiding forfeit. His teammates often call him Reg – as those associated with hockey know the blue-eyed player/coach from the movie Slapshot – a famously mentoring hottie called Paul Newman. I believe the nickname fits my guy, in a lot of ways, not the least of which is my husband’s ability to put away hard-boiled eggs. 

This morning Reg was telling me about last night's game.  I’m often asleep when he gets home from his twice-weekly games, as they generally start at 9:30 or 10 pm. And what with the food and beer after the game, his arrival home is quite late.  I usually ask about the outcome as he crawls into bed, but last night I was sleeping soundly. So this morning we had a proper conversation about it.  

Seems the Bulldogs’ normal goalie, RJ was out for the week. Reg had been working to find a replacement. The backup he usually calls, a young gun "rink rat" who had helped them win more than once, had already accepted a fill-in slot with Empire Auto, their opposition in last night’s game. Less a rivalry than a one-up-man-ship, these two teams duked it out in the finals for last season’s championship – a game that happened only a couple months ago and ended in a last-second-of-overtime winning goal by the other team. I was at that game and it was a sad night, until the beer started flowing. 

Still looking for a goalie for last night’s game, Reg reached out to the league president at the rink. Unresolved until suit-up time, the Bulldogs learned that their goalie for the evening was a thin, “whiney” 22 year old who played terribly the last time he took the net for them. Despair may be too strong a word, but Reg was disappointed. They intended to show Empire who the real champions were tonight in this replay of last season’s final game. Alas, in that moment in the locker room, it wasn't meant to be.

But that goes to show how, in hockey, as in life, you cannot let previous loss or poor performance get into your head. As a matter of fact, you must quickly “move off” a bad shot in one moment of play or you could get very hurt by a puck that’s coming your way in this next moment of play. “So it goes” to quote Kurt Vonnegut Jr at every death of dignity. Reg rallied the troops and gave them the “you got this” speech that really none of them needed, but appreciated nonetheless. Reg has been known to motivate the guys with a “let’s f#ckin’ do this sh!t” as the team takes the ice. 

Now, not being at the game, I can only imagine it. A block of ten grown men, sure they were going down but faithfully bringing their best anyway. And bring it they did. With excellent scoring and surprising goalie skills from someone who could have been written off – the final score of 9 to 3 favored the (under)Bulldogs. And there you have it: never assume someone’s past performance will tell you all that much (really) about what they will do in this moment, especially when you show a little faith by doing your best work beside them. So, take that to your next team meeting, leaders. That’ll make a difference in the outcome, for the game and the season.

 lilaplevy, © February 2014 

unexpected sherry

Crisp. Wine as nail polish remover

Wide, then stopping sweet

The taste of mentorship

A working crush, a kooky inspiration

to be better than I am

It’s the manly-sweet voice in my head

A small girl’s pattern

watching her own performance from just inside the door

I try harder

to be worthy of his momentary attention,

to show qualities translatable on a mother’s tongue

My dad kept a small bottle of

acetone-laced liquid in a vial in his desk

MacGyver-like agent that cleaned mistakes

and misspent glue

Later we found it among his accouterments

I am to be writing my annual review

Assess professional contributions

as I twirl a tiny glass

Test tacky connections to colleagues

who might value my performance

from secondhand account

I must revisit each strength and gap

in a year I wish to forget

Perhaps I can submit a poem

My only product ever given full marks

by my father – even though

he never read them through to the end

© lila.p.levy, March 2013

Shame

Shame, a photo by lilalevy1063 on Flickr.