Contributor: Bruce Levine

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Blistering weather withers
As cooler climes take over
Reflecting
Revealing the emptiness that surrounds
Pervading the hollowness that echoes
Like an empty cavern
Floating through a ravine of longing
Waiting
For the improvements that signal
Recuperation
Regaining the equanimity
Of our own circle of life
Holding fast to passions and fancies
Foibles and follies
Hopes and dreams
Fears and failures
Following the road to the precipice
Onward
Holding hands
Always reaching for the next plateau
Always seeking the unanswered question
And laughing
To cover up the unknown
The sham laughter of sorrow
To hide the tears
That flow too readily for propriety
Yet shrink with hope
Fleeting
And rise again
On a roller-coaster of fate


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Bruce Levine, a native Manhattanite, has spent his life as a writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional and is published on and in numerous internet and print journals. His work is dedicated to the loving memory of his late wife, Lydia Franklin.