Lila Julius

Lila Julius was born in Toronto, Canada. In 1972 she moved to Israel with her husband and five children. Their sixth child was born in Jerusalem.  She has given workshops and taught creative writing in the north of Israel where she currently lives.  Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in literary journals and newspapers both in Israel and abroad.  She has published a journal, Almond Fever and two books of poetry, The Idea of Figs and At the Farewell Picnic, and is currently working on a third collection of poetry, The Importance of Red.  Her writing for children includes magazine publications of poetry, fiction and articles and most recently, a picture book Papa’s New Pants translated into Hebrew and published by Sifriat Poalim in Israel.   

The following works are copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  

The Importance of Red

i. Camille Pissarro

in every painting
left his red hat,
sometimes so small
you have to search
for it, a quiet statement:
I was in this place,
here’s what I saw,
this my offering.

ii. Red

Children know the importance of red.
It’s the first crayon to be used up,
the first empty square in the paint box.
There are forces out there after red,
stealing it for flags, speeches,
political pamphlets.     
Soon it will be lost to us, like “gay”
and I need red, for wheelbarrows,
February.

iii.Eve

Red!  It pulled my eyes and fingers to it
and I popped it in my mouth, whole,
my teeth closing on its pulpy tartness,
its silken seeds.  And I don’t care
what happens, only something!

  

Two Mini Sagas

i. Meditations on the Nature
of Heaven and Hell

Patience and Forrester, two church mice,
were wiping their whiskers.  “Heaven,”
said Patience, “is communion wafers.”
“And hell,” said Forrester, “is a whole month
of Sundays.”  But they’re both wrong. 
Heaven is the sharp smell of cheddar
the beadle is slicing, and hell is the back-
breaking slam of metal.

 

ii. After Much Deliberation
On the Shape of the Earth

“Round,” said Columbus wearily.
“Flat, as our marriage bed,”
said his portly wife.  He couldn’t wait
to get away.  “Hurry,” he told the mariners
loading boxes and barrels. “Hoist the sails!”
He waved to his wife who stood smug
on the hillside and watched him sail
right over the edge.

  

A Taste of Silence

                     for the poet Charles Wright

Earth and sky fired in an old kiln
and nobody to sweep up the shards;
a white haze is spread
over the mountains of Edom,
above me, a pale glaze.

In this bowl of the desert
I expected harshness
but up close, the sandstone hills
doze shaggy, familiar,
with fur that when ruffled
shows dark, then light.
Ringed by their presence,
I feel at ease, let expectations
sift through fingers.

I sit with my footprints behind me,
my fading shadow in front.
It’s that time of day the Bible calls breezy.

Focused on the small voice of stillness,
where even a pebble falling
perks a distant fox’s ears,
I hear the drone of planes overhead,
cars on the highway, and from nearby Ketura,
the sound of a truck backing up a long road.

Echoed in the hills around me,
the words of the poet,
“don’t just do something, sit there”
and I do, I do.