Stanley H. Barkan

TWINS
for Bonnie & Bebe

Two little girls,
in an old photo,
I took for teens,
butare just little girls,
in the same outfits.

The one on the left,
called the “cute” one;
the one on the right, not.

Actually, they were
not twins, but triplets;
the third not born alive,
somehow squeezed
between the other two,
could not survive.

It wasn’t until these
twins were twelve
that their mother
told them they
were triplets.

Now in the photo,
the two both smiling
under their sun bonnets,
wearing square patterned,
pink-and-blueplaid,
white gloves,
bobby socks,
one withblack patent leather,
the other, sturdy plain leather shoes,
still too young to know
of their lost sister.

Oh, but now they stand,
forever fixed in smiling bliss,
a time of joyful ignorance.

And I, as I look backwards,
with wonder at what they were
and what they have both become:
fine wives and mothers,
grandmothers, too,
both artists,
bothliving works of art,
thevery best that could be.

Only the shadow of the third
who might have also been
shadows my mind.


WOMB THOUGHTS

In the womb
I was happy
floating about
in my own sea.

I had all
that I needed—
why look for trouble,
exit Eden?

I remember . . .
You don’t believe me,
but I am sure
of this memory.

Now as I look
about me,
at daughter & son
and their children,

I think of
the journey
from then
till now.

From birth
to birth to birth
all over the earth—
the miracle of life!


THE BUTTERFLY TREE
for Toshi

Why they came
to my house
is a mystery.

They were on their way
south to the sun
where they go every year.

How they get there,
what guides them,
no one really knows.

At first I thought
it was the leaves
shaking in the tree.

It seemed as if
the tree had suddenly
taken on a fauna aspect.

Its branches were shaking,
all its leaves were dancing.
it was alive with movement!

As I was drawn to the tree
by its more than floral motion,
I looked more closely.

The leaves that fluttered,
the branches that shook—
were something else!

They weren’t green,
they were orange-and-black,
thousands of waving wings!

Monarchs had stopped
to rest for a while
in the shade of my tree.

All of a sudden
the tree seemed to be
readying to take off.

Then, all together,
the leaf-wings flew off—
a cloud of butterflies.

Merrick, New York