Maple

by Lori Levy (Sherman Oaks, CA)

My friend says I’m always looking for maple—

for what’s good and sweet, like the syrup made from

the maples of my childhood in Vermont.

Not everything in life is maple, she says.

Maybe I’m looking for it more these days.

The older I get, the more I notice

the bittersweet taste of life. I wish I could say

it’s like the chocolate I use to make brownies,

but it’s more like this:

as I’m sitting with a friend in rapt silence,

watching Itzhak Perlman play violin in Los Angeles,

another concert is going on in Gaza,

a bloodcurdling one of booms, bangs, screams. 

My siblings in Israel send me photos of flowers blooming

in green fields: lupines, cyclamens, clovers, daisies.

The war is in its fifth month,

but there they are, walking among irises, anemones. 

I read about an 84-year-old woman

held hostage by Hamas in a dark, airless tunnel,

how she’s given six dates to eat, her food for the day,

a bottle of water placed just beyond her reach:

she’s too weak to get up from her mattress.

Palestinians are dying. Israelis are dying.

Children in Gaza are starving. Israeli hostages are being raped.

My worldview begins to crack and crumble:

Was I wrong to believe people are basically good?

I used to laugh in denial when my daughter said evil exists.

Now I dig in the dark, desperate for a trace of maple.

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod International Journal, Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review, and numerous other online and print literary journals and anthologies in the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. Her poems have also been published in medical humanities journals and Jewish journals. In 2023, two of her chapbooks were published: What Do You Mean When You Say Green? and Other Poems of Color (Kelsay Books) and Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont (Ben Yehuda Press). You can find some of her poems on Instagram at IG@lorilevypoems. Levy lives with her husband in Los Angeles near their children and grandchildren, but “home,” for her, has also been Vermont and Israel.