The Black Snake

A week ago
we followed a road
through orchards
of plum, apple and apricot
a road so close to the border
we clearly saw lookout posts,
glimpsed into homes

Someone could shoot at us you said,
as you maneuvered the car around,
turning back and just then
a black snake slithered whip-like
across the road, so close,
almost under the wheels,
we gasped
black snakes are harmless you said

The next day rockets were fired
into a town just down the road from ours
and we thought of the snake
and wondered at omens

A Walk Through Orchards

A walk through the orchards
with a dog on a June afternoon
approaching summer
light plays delightful with the leaves,
painting them silver, then gold,
then again to green

Listen… Do you hear the apples growing?
Right now - yes - turning green into red

Do you hear the tendrils of the kiwis
as they climb and entwine - did you know
the kiwi is a vine?

Look - the windfall of peaches on the ground
we squat down and scoop them up,
pocketfuls, backpacks-full, armfuls,
enough peaches to feed us for a year

We walk through the orchards,
which roll up and down
through undulating hills unending,
beyond borders,
into Lebanon and on into infinity

And we follow, together and forever,
a jaunty trio, laden with peaches
and the fervour of adventure,
fade into the shadows of fruit trees,
lengthening into evening

As we thank the land for its expansiveness
its generosity of green,
light candles to celebrate the sun,
red and orange and yellow as it sets
slow behind the horizon
and continue trustful on an unknown road

The Contours of the Village

As my brush touches paper
and the contours of the village
appear underneath its tip
as though a miracle -
is it I doing this?

I scrutinize the architecture
just across the fence
beyond the border
different from ours
one would expect proximity
to dictate similar building forms
but no

individuality of the enemy
complicates matters for my hands
used as they are
to our various structures
so that they sketch these
almost automatically;
thus the painting takes longer
than I would expect

I ponder these differences
but nature is indifferent
does not take sides -
the fruit trees in both lands
are all blooming pink and white
in peaceful tandem

Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York City in 1942. She has lived in Israel for 36 years. She holds a degree in Anthropology from California State University, Northridge, 1972. Since 1976 Helen has devoted herself to art: painting, teaching and writing poetry. From 1989 until 2001 she was a member of the Safad Artists' Colony in the Upper Galilee where she had her own gallery. In January 2007 she and Johnmichael Simon moved to Metulla, the northernmost town in Israel.

To date Bar-Lev has participated in 80 exhibitions, including 30 one-person shows. She was the curator of the widely acclaimed Homage to Yosef Hirsch exhibitions (appearing in 3 venues) in 2002 and 2003 in which 53 of Hirsch's former students participated. 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, etc., and also print anthologies including Meeting of the Minds Journal;, Voices Israel Anthologies; Manifold Magazine of New Poetry (U.K.); Lucidity Poetry Journal, and Across The Long Bridge and Sailing in the Mist of Time, both anthologies of Award-Winning Poetry; Harvest International; Poesy first international issue; For Loving Precious Beast, An Anthology of Poetry edited by Yolanda Coulaz; Ibbetson Street 21; The Rogue Scholars, June 2007, Magnapoets; Eden Waters Press, Windsor ReView.

A book entitled CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS with poems of Israel by Helen and Johnmichael Simon has been published by Ibbetson Press of Boston, Mass. and may be ordered from the authors hbarlev@netvision.net.il. It is also available via Lulu. Her watercolour 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, of the Canadian Federation of Poets and Canadian Poetry Association. She is the global correspondent in Israel for the Poetry Bridge and Editor-in-Chief of the Voices Israel Annual Anthology.

Email: Helen Bar-Lev

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