First Love &
Other Poems:
Metrical Moments for the Most of Us
is the literary genius of Norman Weinstein.
Biography
Norman J. Weinstein was born in Roanoke, Virginia and also lived in France, Greece, New York City and, lastly, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has degrees from Roanoke College and Columbia University. He has been a military news correspondent, an English teacher, a feature writer for two decorative arts magazines, and a playwright as well as a poet.
An Excerpt of Poems from First Love & Other Poems
Raphael's Corner
For him it was a world quite adequate,
A simple corner of a living room,
A space familiar as each breath you take
And where when evening came he could resume
The occupation of his small domain,
Where he could sit and read and contemplate
And search for visions lost he might regain,
Which youth in him might somehow activate.
How wonderful if each and every one
Of us could find a special corner where
We might just find our lives have but begun
If gazing deep into ourselves we swear
To strive to know just what we were at best
And seize those youthful dreams we once caressed.
A Modest Immortality
About heaven and hell, I know little,
And as to immortality nothing at all,
But I do welcome my special ghosts,
The ones we all possess,
Who might visit us unbidden
Through simple means.
For instance,
When celery grows a little limp,
My wife sets it in the fridge
In cold water in a bowl
And adds a touch of salt.
Every single time it works,
And voila, the celery's firm again.
"Neat trick," I say admiringly.
She smiles before she says,
"Your mother taught me that
Almost before I didn't know
Boiling water wasn't hard to do."
Strange, for that moment I saw and heard my mother, long gone,
Standing before me and looking pleased,
And so I saw and heard her once again,
Immortal for an unexpected moment
And as long as I shall live.
- Norman Weinstein, 2015