I had the wonderful fortune to publish two brilliant poets in Autumn Sky Poetry, both of whom passed away last week. I didn’t know either man personally, but their words and verse will resonate with me for a long time. RIP Paul Stevens and Elisha Porat.

Paul Stevens — The Allotropes

First love is justly praised;
Last love has beauties too,
Here at the end of days:
Antique me, new-minted you,

Our times untuned, our fates
Quite unaligned – yet we,
Disjunct, together make
A disparate unity

Of opposites, where time
And space are playthings of
Your musing eyes, which dream
Us: allotropes of love.

Published in Autumn Sky Poetry #12

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Elisha Porat — There Are Those Who

There are those who count on their fingers
as if they were counting their dead,
and there are those whose friends constantly explode
with the whistle of the wind in their ears.
As if they kept coming and coming
from those fields, from the black
basalt stones.
And there are those who look up
now, to the cleansing sky,
and see thousands of mourners
whose tortured hearts
are also their own.
And there are those who sit
quietly on the drive,
touch their grimy necks
and are silent.

Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner.

Published in Autumn Sky Poetry #1