Stanley H. Barkan – May (with "May" by Adel Gorgy")




















So
the flowers
have come,
at last.
Millefiore—
all the colors
of the mythic rainbow.
The little girls wear them
in their hair,
prepare
for the dance
around the pole
we dreamt about
as children.
Butterflies are still
in chrysalis,
moths in pupa.
When hint of summer sun
will warm their cool cocoons,
they’ll spread their wings
and flutter out
on petals firm to the seed
on edge of branch,
open to the greater
and lesser lamps
spotlighting
their all too brief
encounter with the air.

Stanley Barkan is the editor and publisher of Cross-Cultural Communications, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary with nearly 400 titles in 50 different languages, in 2011. His own  work has been published in fifteen collections, several bilingual (Bulgarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Sicilian). His latest collections are Strange Seasons with complementary photoart by Russian photographer, Mark Polyakov, and ABC of Fruits and Vegetables, illustrated by  his daughter, Mia Barkan Clarke. He partners with Peter Thabit Jones of The Seventh Quarry on many cooperative publications and events.