SECOND PLACE WINNING POEM – by Sherri Levine
Sherri Levine is a poet, mental health advocate, educator, and squirrel lover living in Portland, Oregon. Her books include: Stealing Flowers from the Neighbors (Kelsay Press, 2021) which was chosen as a national book club choice for Alzheimer’s Authors. A Joy to See (Just a Lark Books, 2023) is an ekphrastic poetry book celebrating her late mother’s art. I Remember Not Sleeping (Fernwood Press, 2024) is deliciated to those who suffer from mental illness.
Reckoning
for Dan
He struggles to speak, to move his body, to open his eyes
like a moth struggling to escape its own
casing, its wings weakened, its body collapsing
into itself.
This reckoning, an unrising:
It will never fly.
I cannot pry open the cocoon
with a pin.
How can I help his rumbling,
the lowest part of low,
the wrestling of emotions?
But he is not a moth.
He is a man.
And how will he escape to freedom
when he resists my touch on his arm,
a kiss on his forehead when I bend down
to cradle his head?
He punches the air with his
one good fist and growls.
JUDGE COMMENTS
This is a beautiful poem. Its title arouses interest by denoting a sense of something ominous. What a great title to poke curiosity. He struggles to speak, to move his body immediately lets the reader know this may be a health-related matter. In addition, how does “Reckoning” relate to a health challenge?
The poem Reckoning does a wonderful job interlacing the concrete with the abstract, metaphors and analogies. They give the mind an opportunity to consider points and statements in a light better suited for understanding. The choice to do so is outstanding, given the subject and subsequent experience expressed in the poem. If written as an elegy, the heart would be stirred with lamentation.