Alyza Lee Salomon has worked as a tutor, editor, and educator. Now blissfully retired, she continues to write poetry, dance, edit—and finally is in the process of completing several book projects. She ascribes her love of words and languages to a trilingual childhood with a European heritage, as filtered through the experience of growing up as a first-generation American. Her poems have appeared in local anthologies, and she has contributed two essays on Virginia Woolf to scholarly journals. As a dancer, she has performed with Natica Angilly’s Poetic Dance Theater Company since 2003. Alyza studied at Harpur College (now Binghamton University) and earned her master’s degree in English Literature at Sonoma State University. She has lived in Maryland, upstate New York, Israel, and now for many years enjoys the natural wonders and cultural diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area.
(on an artwork by Pat Calabro)
Color and Line
jump at the chance
to dance divinely
embracing space
and racing time
we jam and jive
practicing the splash
and the swirl,
we unfurl
not for rhyme
but for rhythm
and design:
a purple heart
or a blue ribbon
can’t compete
with this jazzy
dive into live
joy sublime!
Geraniums laugh!
While zinnias smile warmly
roses meditate . . . .
Waking brings return:
as birds to air we alight
to sunshine’s sweet kiss.
What did I learn from watching
the Ken Burns TV documentary?
One in three of Europe’s
Jewish adults survived.
But only one
in ten Jewish children
survived the Holocaust.
My parents were sixteen
when they were rescued
out of Vienna, no longer Austria,
to British Mandate Palestine.
If they are counted as children
then imagine that they each
lost nine of a group
of siblings, cousins, friends, peers.
My mother lost her mother.
My dad lost his favorite cousin, Gerda.
How unfathomable is the acute pain
of those who remember lost loved ones.
How incomprehensible
Is the slaughter of fellow human beings.
“The flower of European Jewry”
Daddy used to say,
emphasizing the three salient words.
Growing up in Seat Pleasant,
Maryland, at twelve years old
I understood the inexplicable grief
that this expression
for the lost six million described.
The social fabric is in turmoil
and needs some serious mending.
I bend over my still singing treadle
and assemble a few more face masks
for my daughter the hospice nurse,
and her airline pilot hubby,
cute ones for the grandkids,
and another for a friend.
While thousands are dying from COVID-19,
brave souls around the globe are protesting
the senseless murder of Black people.
My heart is with you, my brethren,
demonstrating in every state
plus DC, near where I grew up.
This Juneteenth I march with you in spirit
as I sit down to sew these silly masks.
George Floyd, Brionna Taylor,
Rayshard Brooks, and more—
it’s too late to sew masks for you.
But I fold and iron this cotton cloth
and stitch the seams to enable
a friend, a relative, a neighbor
to go outside and breathe
a little more safely tomorrow,
so we all can breathe easier.
Hearts Singing in Harmony by Natica Angilly
(on a painting by Natica Angilly)
Don’t miss the resounding mystery of love!
It is visible—can you see it?
These hearts are muddy red and blue-ish, tan
and transparent, beating in perfect rhythm.
This is the sacred music—pulsing, pulsing
through every living being! Here’s the artist
who paints this scene—see how their right arm graces
the dense canvas that becomes a picture window.
Embrace the space between us, says this mirror
in which your heart is the source of artistry
that smartly draws aside the filmy curtain
blocking the light and growth of inspiration:
Open the portal and behold all the love
that flows—a glowing river neverending . . .
