Nuage, Mirage
The great Django Reinhardt wrote a song called "Nuage" - clouds - today there are no clouds - a pellucid sky, slight gold inscribed on the mountains and pure azure - a raven floats, the sun broad as in the poems of Whitman's "Song Of Myself" pouring onto peaks and the Hudson River - like Django - I am a gypsy -like him, I play guitar with a hand burned in a house fire, only two fingers to chord - yet my sound is unique as the Santa Anna winds of the desert - my burned hand - a husband who tried to kill me with poison - but like Django I escaped - and sing like "A Nightengale In Berkeley Square" - that jazz tune. Nuage and today, just infinite sapphire expanse, my years to come.
Judy Katz-Levine has a new book out, The Everything Saint, available from Amazon and published by WordTech Communications. Her other books include Ocarina and When The Arms Of Our Dreams Embrace. A chapbook, When Performers Swim, The Dice Are Cast, emphasizes her work in jazz. Poems and translations have appeared recently in Salamander, Blue Unicorn, Ibbetson Street, Miriam's Well, Writing In A Woman's Voice, and Peacock Journal Anthology. Also a jazz flutist, she enjoys playing jam sessions in the Boston area.
