Richard Levine

Richard Levine Poems

Richard Levine Biography

Richard Levine, a retired NYC teacher, is the author of Now in Contest, Selected Poems, Contiguous States, and five chapbooks. An Advisory Editor of BigCityLit.com, he is the recipient of the 2021 Connecticut Poetry Society Award, and was co-editor of "Invasion of Ukraine 2022: Poems." His poetry has appeared in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry column and can be found on the Poetry Foundation and the American Academy of Poets websites. In addition, his work is archived in LaSalle University's Special Collections Library. A Vietnam veteran, he has written for American Book Review. website: richardlevine107.com.)

The Best Poem Of Richard Levine

Believe This

Believe This

All morning, doing the hard, root-wrestling
work of turning a yard from the wild
to a gardener's will, I heard a bird singing
from a hidden, though not distant, perch;
a song of swift, syncopated syllables sounding
like, Can you believe this, believe this, believe?
Can you believe this, believe this, believe?
And all morning, I did believe.All morning,
between break-even bouts with the unwanted,
I wanted to see that bird, and looked up so
I might later recognize it in a guide, and know
and call its name, but even more, I wanted
to join its church.For all morning, and many
a time in my life, I have wondered who, beyond
this plot I work, has called the order of being,
that givers of food are deemed lesser
than are the receivers.All morning,
muscling my will against that of the wild,
to claim a place in the bounty of earth,
seed, root, sun and rain, I offered my labor
as a kind of grace, and gave thanks even
for the aching in my body, which reached
beyond this work and this gift of struggle.

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