Michael H. Levin
Telling Tales
It’s narrative we live in.
Early. Late. Here only
do we ride a voice that canters forth
to listeners bound to hear.
Here finally do we slip beyond
obsessive selves toward rites
that vest our tales
with freighted memory.
Those big-browed hairy faces
by a cave-fire while the ice cracks
are the grist of us—rapt at
hand-signed stories of the hunt,
the kill, the spirit marks that signal
feasts at close.
Gaunt figures in gray treatment chairs
slumped bonelessly or hypnotized
by globules in their chemo drips
grow radiant at the chance to share
their disregarded histories.
Crass insults on a tiny screen
coiled snarls beneath the turkey-talk
at family rendezvous recede
where sheltering connections
masked as anecdotes surprise.
Through tales
each soul is recognized; endorsed
to feel; can compass buried griefs.
Perhaps rise to community.
Perhaps in some sense heal.
Michael H. Levin is the author of the poetry collections Man Overboard (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Watered Colors (Poetica Publishing, 2014). His work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, Adirondack Review, and Crosswinds, among other journals and anthologies. Levin works as an environmental lawyer and solar energy developer, and lives in Washington DC. Online at michaellevinpoetry.com and twopianosplayingforlife.org.
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