Midmorning
Selma Meerbaum–Eisinge

Wind, dreamy notes, sings
its lullaby, gently touching the leaves.
I let myself be, seduced, immersed
in song like grass.

Air shivers
and cools my fevered face
wrapped in desire.
Clouds drift by, scatter white ,
sun-stolen light.

The old acacia
leaves silence
a trembling tangle of leaves.
The scents of the earth rise,
and then fall back to me.

Selma Meerbaum–Eisinger born on February 5, 1924,
in Ukraine, was a poet and translator. She died
December 16, 1942.

June

The tall grass on the hill, she watches,
thinking, she'd mow, when a couple of
young bull snake pops out of the hole 
beneath the junipers, tangled for mating.

She gawks as he undoes himself to let his mate 
go down the slope, slithers aside nearby the tall grass
and gives the lady the way. 

She gestures and tell him: go, go ahead. 
He calmly looks at her as if to say: you, go ahead.
She: no, you first.
He fixes his innocent beady eyes on her: you first. 
she decides he won't go first, with his gentle manish attitude. 
She goes up the slope and turn to see him going down the slope,
and joins his mate, who happily heads to the pasture. 

Above her head, a hawk laughs. she smiles at him. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

two houses at the foothill
the railroad runs along the river
peaceful hamlet

passing through the town
oil smell scratches the throat
not gold but trees heal it

about interracial marriage 
he says he doesn't understand
she says if you do, you do

summer green
spring green matured
what must be done?

widen the mind
with green miles of prairie
why the gray sky?

©Byung A. Fallgren

In the Forest
Oscar Wild (1854--1900)

Out of the mid-wood's twilight
   Into the meadow's dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown- eyed,
   Flashes my faun!
He skips through the corpses singing,
   And his shadow dances along!
And I know not which I should follow?
   Shadow or song?
O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and
I think him in vain!