AMY KITCHENER'S |
|
When the asters bow to the wind And the yellow phlox melts in the sun And the bees hover in dewy beds, I think of you, And know that nature's kind face And soft, mellow habits Are so, because you are here And in your tight little fist And smooth palm Lie the best of my heart, Its steady hope, or wild confusion. The summer haze? Time standing still? Poet's metaphor? Or life's treasury to be inherited? Bird's cry And crickets' hum And rustling of the many spangled leaves? Demon sound? The supernatural? Or life's everyday voices which you will hear When I am gone. Sylvia Levine
|
My mother was born, we believe, on June 15th, 1907 in Berditchev Russia, a tiny shtetl or village in the Ukraine. In 1913 she and her family came through Ellis Island to New York and then to Boston. She worked her way through Radcliffe in a library and graduated in 1928 with a B.A. in English Literature. She lived most of her life in the Boston area, but in her youth she was a research assistant for the Smithsonian Institute. She passed away in Canton, MA in 1995 and left several short stories, poems and a memoir in my care.
Helena Levine-Ryan
Newton, Massachusetts |