What
Do You Mean When You Say Green?
By
Lori Levy
By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson
Lori Levy sees life in technicolor as is evidenced by her bright colorful chapbook, “What Do You Mean When You Say Green and Other Poems of Color (Kelsay Books 2023.)”
Like her blurb writers, I am dazzled and dizzy
with her creativity and clever use of colors and
description
and stunned by the insight and compassion she shows as she shares stories about
family life.
Carol V. Davis, author of Below Zero writes:
The poems in Lori Levy’s chapbook burst with color, a world filled with the “scent of eucalyptus,” “under skies pregnant with treetops/and the flapping wings of birds.” Poems travel from a kibbutz in Israel, to Panama and Vermont, places ripe with pumpkins and yams and “the rattle of Mexican maracas.” When a guest slices and plates a papaya for breakfast it is transformed into an unforgettable experience. Even the sadness of a relative sick in the hospital or a parent aging is gracefully accepted. These poems demand the reader pay attention to even “a whisper in the woods,” all the sounds, tastes and especially the colors that make life meaningful. This collection dazzles with color and taste and vibrancy.
Storyteller
Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, author of Dancing with My Daughter and editor of Your Daily
Poem had this to say:
“I've been in love with Lori Levy's poems for years, and What Do You Mean When You Say Green? And Other Poems of Color contains some of her best. The memories in a blue/brown/pink mug painted by grandchildren, the allure of a red-orange sliver of mango, the majesty of gold in the afternoon sun...these poems paint portrait after portrait of love, pain, understanding, and absolution. Lori takes us from a kiosk in the LAX airport to a kibbutz sunroom in the Negev desert to a hammock in Panama. This poetic rainbow will make you smile, make you think, and make you grateful for this colorful world we live in.”
Poems I especially
enjoyed.
What Do You Mean When You Say Green?
Do you mean the obvious, green as in grass?
Is it the green of a lawn well-kept
or the duller shade of a yellowing yard?
Are you thinking jungles, banana leaves?
Or is it a far-away dusty green—
a cactus in the desert or tumbleweed?
Perhaps you mean something else entirely:
green as in money, green with envy,
green as in go in a traffic light.
Maybe the mold on a piece of bread.
Color of decay, rusting copper.
Tint of your skin when you’re feeling queasy.
What if my green is lighter than yours:
mint or lime or avocado
when you are fixed on fir or cypress?
Will we be able to blend our greens?
Compromise on a Kelly green?
If you say green to me tonight,
will you be thinking of a tattooed hip?
Craving scoops of pistachio ice cream?
Or can I assume your green will mean
the flecks you see in my hazel eyes?
FUNKY FUCHSIA
Friday nights at my mother-in-law’s
I follow the exquisite nails
of my Armenian sister-in-law from Iran.
Pale blue sometimes like her mohair sweater,
or yellow, pushing back a strand of dark hair.
Burgundy on the white bread she raises
to her lips at the evening meal;
funky fuchsia under the water in the kitchen sink.
Five cool kiwis hold a glass of tea;
classic reds flirt with the tip of a cigarette.
Fingernails like castanets that click behind her words;
like sparks that fly beside her stories of Tehran.
Nails that give a shape to laughter,
come alive like drops of Jasmine,
who dyes T-shirts in America—
teal green, ruby red, juniper berry.
Friday nights at my mother-in-law’s
I follow the exquisite nails
of my Armenian sister-in-law from Iran.
Pale blue sometimes like her mohair sweater,
or yellow, pushing back a strand of dark hair.
Burgundy on the white bread she raises
to her lips at the evening meal;
funky fuchsia under the water in the kitchen sink.
Five cool kiwis hold a glass of tea;
classic reds flirt with the tip of a cigarette.
Fingernails like castanets that click behind her words;
like sparks that fly beside her stories of Tehran.
Nails that give a shape to laughter,
come alive like drops of Jasmine,
who dyes T-shirts in America—
teal green, ruby red, juniper berry.
WHEN OUR GUEST MAKES BREAKFAST
It’s not that I’m bored with toast and jam;
just that our guest has sliced a papaya
for breakfast this morning, and those red-orange slivers,
flushed and wet, lie curled on a plate
in the center of our table, offering themselves.
Just that I’m drawn to his hand on the knife,
the grace of his wrist as he peels and carves;
drawn to this blaze of mango, papaya—
and the speckled green kiwi
he tosses on top like a handful of coins.
Not that I yearned for a taste of the tropics
or favor pulp over toasted rye;
just that—this moment—I cannot resist
the cactus pear on the edge of the plate
that he’s pared and opened
and placed within reach of my fingers.
It’s not that I’m bored with toast and jam;
just that our guest has sliced a papaya
for breakfast this morning, and those red-orange slivers,
flushed and wet, lie curled on a plate
in the center of our table, offering themselves.
Just that I’m drawn to his hand on the knife,
the grace of his wrist as he peels and carves;
drawn to this blaze of mango, papaya—
and the speckled green kiwi
he tosses on top like a handful of coins.
Not that I yearned for a taste of the tropics
or favor pulp over toasted rye;
just that—this moment—I cannot resist
the cactus pear on the edge of the plate
that he’s pared and opened
and placed within reach of my fingers.
TONGUE-TIED
I am tongue-tied in the hospital,
can’t think what to say to the face above the neck
with the tracheotomy tube. Her lips ask how we are—
her children, grandchildren, great-grandson.
Perhaps I’ve never been a storyteller,
but here in this room, where life is about
blood sugar, oxygen, catheters,
my stories get shorter and shorter. She shrugs in response.
I begin to speak in initials: RN, RT, PMV.
Every day the same words: yogurt, water.
The same tired questions: Did she eat? Is she in pain?
I need color in this space. Fragrance. Tang.
Pine trees, eucalyptus, lavender, lemons.
I need crunchy new words, bites of apples.
Or dark chocolate ones that resonate with cellos.
I want to make something up.
Fabricate. Exaggerate—especially in pink.
Maybe tell her, if she gets off the bed,
if she walks to the window, she’ll see
cherry trees blooming; millions of
blossoms lifting in the breeze,
like a troupe of ballerinas in pink tutus.
Bubbles of Bazooka filling and filling
till—just before they pop—
they freeze into ice cream, scoops of raspberry
or pink peppercorn with pomegranate seeds.
I want to smooth it on her cheeks.
Make her glow again.
But, of course, I just stare out her window
into gray cement walls. Are you hungry? I ask.
The yogurt I feed her is cherry-flavored;
the rash on her body, a rosy pink.
PURPLE YAMSI am tongue-tied in the hospital,
can’t think what to say to the face above the neck
with the tracheotomy tube. Her lips ask how we are—
her children, grandchildren, great-grandson.
Perhaps I’ve never been a storyteller,
but here in this room, where life is about
blood sugar, oxygen, catheters,
my stories get shorter and shorter. She shrugs in response.
I begin to speak in initials: RN, RT, PMV.
Every day the same words: yogurt, water.
The same tired questions: Did she eat? Is she in pain?
I need color in this space. Fragrance. Tang.
Pine trees, eucalyptus, lavender, lemons.
I need crunchy new words, bites of apples.
Or dark chocolate ones that resonate with cellos.
I want to make something up.
Fabricate. Exaggerate—especially in pink.
Maybe tell her, if she gets off the bed,
if she walks to the window, she’ll see
cherry trees blooming; millions of
blossoms lifting in the breeze,
like a troupe of ballerinas in pink tutus.
Bubbles of Bazooka filling and filling
till—just before they pop—
they freeze into ice cream, scoops of raspberry
or pink peppercorn with pomegranate seeds.
I want to smooth it on her cheeks.
Make her glow again.
But, of course, I just stare out her window
into gray cement walls. Are you hungry? I ask.
The yogurt I feed her is cherry-flavored;
the rash on her body, a rosy pink.
Our debts are magical: they keep growing and growing
like the beans Jack planted in his mother’s garden.
We, too, look for a castle in the sky,
but instead of a hen who lays golden eggs,
we glimpse the boot of the giant, stamping, crushing.
Another bill unpaid or paid partially or late.
The world shrinks to the size of a coin; my life,
the constant counting of what I have or don’t have.
I inhale scarcity, exhale scarcity.
It settles on my tongue, sharp as complaint.
Whines in my ears. Crawls like an itch along my skin.
So I borrow my son’s Discman and go to bed with a professor—
his voice soothing me, teaching me Mindfulness, Meditation.
Focus on your breath, he says. Observing without judging.
I close my eyes, pay attention to my breathing,
how it carries me away—to Stephanie, my son’s girlfriend.
To her laughter and her long, black hair. My breathing turns to
cocoa: I am sipping the Mexican hot chocolate
she made us one evening, cinnamon-flavored,
cool whip on top. And now I’m biting into
hopia, the Filipino pastries she buys for us,
flaky, filled with yams, purple yams. Ube.
I am savoring the sweetness, mesmerized by that purple,
how it lures me to meadows of iris and lavender; speaks to me
of amethyst. Of emperors in long robes.
Hopia, I murmur. Like a chant, a mantra. Hopia. Hopia.
I open my eyes. My husband lies beside me
in the semi-dark room, a spot of light on the wall
where the nightlight casts its glow.
I see purple in the shadows.
PANAMA GRAY
It's the rainy season here
in Playa Venao: gray sea, gray sky.
I sit on the beach staring into gray.
Gloom, I call it, because it's not
the sunny blue sky I left in L.A.
What is this gloom? The dull, the bland—
if that's what it is—holds me still in my chair,
comforts in a faded-old-blanket way.
I begin to see color: silver, pale blue, olive green.
Listen: this gloom isn't shy—waves thundering, seething,
howler monkeys roaring in the trees.
Gloom, I call it, but it tastes like a smoothie
made from pineapples, mangoes, bananas.
I have chosen to come. Have come to help.
Some days that means arms, mine,
bleeding and bruised from my five-year-old granddaughter
who pinches and scratches. How can I blame her?
Or her three-year-old sister who wails,
wants Mama to come home
and stay forever and ever.
The split is bitter, sharp and stinging
as the bites of chitras.
I watch their Papa—my son—
make them pancakes in the morning
with blueberries and bananas. Maple syrup
drizzled on top. I think about sweet—
how we crave it, need it. How here, in Playa Venao,
I walk through rain and mud, if I have to,
for a slice of Fabi's home-made cake
at el Café de Acá at the edge of the jungle.
Read more about Lori:
It's the rainy season here
in Playa Venao: gray sea, gray sky.
I sit on the beach staring into gray.
Gloom, I call it, because it's not
the sunny blue sky I left in L.A.
What is this gloom? The dull, the bland—
if that's what it is—holds me still in my chair,
comforts in a faded-old-blanket way.
I begin to see color: silver, pale blue, olive green.
Listen: this gloom isn't shy—waves thundering, seething,
howler monkeys roaring in the trees.
Gloom, I call it, but it tastes like a smoothie
made from pineapples, mangoes, bananas.
I have chosen to come. Have come to help.
Some days that means arms, mine,
bleeding and bruised from my five-year-old granddaughter
who pinches and scratches. How can I blame her?
Or her three-year-old sister who wails,
wants Mama to come home
and stay forever and ever.
The split is bitter, sharp and stinging
as the bites of chitras.
I watch their Papa—my son—
make them pancakes in the morning
with blueberries and bananas. Maple syrup
drizzled on top. I think about sweet—
how we crave it, need it. How here, in Playa Venao,
I walk through rain and mud, if I have to,
for a slice of Fabi's home-made cake
at el Café de Acá at the edge of the jungle.
Read more about Lori:
Buy the Book:
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