Poems by Richard Lebovitz

Fatal Attraction

by Richard Lebovitz

From Canary Summer 2020

Richard lives in the Upper Chattahoochee Watershed in the Georgia Piedmont. His small backyard is a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Certified Wildlife Habitat and Georgia Native Plant Society (GNPS) Certified Native Plant Habitat, and he participates in GNPS rescues to save native plants from the path of development.

Moths flock from the darkness
flailing their fragile wings
against the bare bulb
of the porch lamp
as if trying to break through
to the bright inside.
In daylight I find them,
tiny navigators of the cosmos
disoriented on their journey
by this uncharted beacon
and now strewn like petals
on the bare porch floor.

© Richard Lebovitz

Night of the Frogs

by Richard Lebovitz

From Canary Summer 2017

Rain poured from the darkness,
pummeling the pavement,
and the tide rose,
flooding the marsh,
and the creeks filled,
lapping at the roadsides,
till they joined hands
in the middle.
And the frogs came up
and covered the highway,
headstrong and reckless,
driven by who knows
what primal instinct
or blind ambition
that would make them
fling themselves so fearlessly
into the unavoidable path
of so many onrushing cars.
We could see them,
their frenetic hopping,
their flattened aftermath,
a Greek tragedy
played before our headlamps
on an asphalt stage.

© Richard Lebovitz

The Owl

by Richard Lebovitz

From Canary Fall 2021

From its perch in the shadows,
the rescued owl peers
into the darkening distance,
waiting for night.

If it despairs of its bandaged wing,
it doesn't show it.
If it yearns to escape,
by what signs will we know it?

It doesn't pace its cage in silent rage
or flail its wings in futile flight
but stands sentry as the daylight fades,
waiting for night.

From its perch in the shadows,
the rescued owl peers past visitors
and refuge fence, beyond the din
and lights of city streets,
to the darkening fields and forests
of owldom.

Uprising

by Richard Lebovitz

From Canary Spring 2019

Under streets, under structures,
the ground moves; cracks form.
Seeds infiltrate crannies and
crevices, fissures and fractures.
Shoots show, first one, then another,
the beginning of an insurrection.

Spikes rise from the trenches;
leaves flutter like banners.
By the silent utterances
of its green voice,
the grass reclaims its place on earth,
blade by blade by blade.