Eugene Stevenson
Olives Keep Secrets
Green limbs, olive-heavy, on a bluff over a rich-blue sea,
hold the eye so the mind can focus, press the shutter,
record the moment in waves of chemistry, file it away in
labyrinths, while the blood flutters, seeks to drown
the waves, put them to rest, quiet the restless talk.
Fingers grasp the fruit tenderly, light enough to
keep bruises & oil at bay, firm enough to bring it
down in a low arc, nadir, up in high arc, apogee,
as the red, wet mouth opens to catch the prize,
a triumph of the tongue, all muscle & mobility.
Olives & sea soil, images & arcs, lips & tongues in
constant caress, continue the slow turn of machinery
down deep in genetic twists, to bare at harvest,
hope, like the hope high in the top branches of
the tree, hope in the pruned burning afterwards.
The lungs swell with salt air & green perfume,
a proud & satisfying moment, recorded or not, yet,
as morsels & moisture descend the throat, descend
pixelated avenues of remembering, a thirst manifests,
unsatisfied. Like faith, olives keep some of their secrets.
Black Opal Koan
A black opal holds the cards, slowly revealed
to be fog of the hand, witnesses before a judge,
stone-dark chants, verdicts from crowds. This
tired & tiresome trouble, we can & will survive it.
Winter, arm trap-caught. Spring, limb broad-axe
severed. For life, run to the city. No hawks soar
over towers. Amid highways, fingers in bark chips
grow roots, the hand blooms in survival, in art.
Notes: Such is the chemistry of position, truth
changes, not with time, but with proximity.
After you visit, I am left little, save music, vertigo,
strain to get out of the deep, the deep what-was.
I may wait too long for the fog to lift. Too quiet,
too careful, too long, too wrong so far, yet still
on my shoulders, I bear, today toward tomorrow,
ancient promises of fruit & another sunrise.
Eugene Stevenson, son of immigrants, father of expatriates, lives in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Eisenhower Fellow, Pushcart Prize nominee & author of The Population of Dreams (Finishing Line Press 2022), his poems have appeared in The Galway Review, The Hudson Review, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Journal, & Washington Square Review among others.
