My wife is a simple poem. She wears silk scarves and brings me to Jerusalem. She is a wading bird in the desert, a date palm flowering in David's court. She is a pioneer who dances the hora, dark like women fromYemen. Her voice is a flute whose notes climb the Judean hills and crawl into crevices of rocks, linking themselves in necklaces around the fibers of cactus. My wife is light and brings me nectar. She is a dove who opens her wings and whirls her body over Israel. Reprinted with perrnission from Shirim Copyright © 1986 by Steven P. Schneider

WHERE DO POETS GO FOR CONFERENCES? by Steven P. Schneider

You see them between shadows, huddling in the sunlight. Metaphor is the name of a panel in the park at dawn. The rhythm of the field is discovered at sunset, alone, anywhere. To move to a level of greater abstraction they seek out chestnuts-- beneath a tree, beside a wall. The mahogany shine of compressed wisdom is blinding. Irony is the name of a session on death. But first you must live. The flowers in a neighbor's yard are a convocation-- yellow marigolds, red roses, pink asters. The bluebird is an omen of things to come. Poets hold conferences at night, on hillsides, looking at stars. Or in city streets wrapping blankets around sleeping bodies. Reprinted with perrnission from Pegasus Copyright © 1995 by Steven P. Schneider