Juggler in Berlin, 1990

Chartreuse balls
bounce against the ceiling of falling night
touch the juggler's forehead and nose
pop
like lottery balls off his hands
into the space
beyond his bristled yellow hair.

Orbiting discs
fly against the black costume
dazzle his chest with light
his white hands recede 
like sound at a distance.

The balls hold up
riveted
at the edge 
of the broad green lawn
which leads.
to the open Wall.

by Lynore Banchoff
Providence, Rhode Island

 ______________________________

American Juggler on Grafton Street, 
Dublin, October 1988

Quiet as Bohr's
celebrated model of the atom
the balls seem held there
in space and in time
for our scrutiny.  

Even the raindrops
are reluctant to fall
before such understanding.

"Start young," summarizes
an old voice, not unwearily.

Perhaps in the laboratory
with a handful of electrons
after school is out?

by Pat Boran
Portlaoise, Ireland

Black Plums

My father among apples
and melons, lost in pyramids 
of hot-house perfections, lifts
a perfect black plum
and another, grips
Mother's list between his teeth, smiling,
and sees a useful thing to do after all
in this strange, cold country of plump
perishables and purposeful women.
He juggles the three black plums
one after the other tossed up
in circles, a galaxy of blue-black
planets orbiting his head and the women
close in, drawn like the plums
to his magnetic fields, and I remember
he told me the moon is moving
away from us - a scientific fact - slow
withdrawal barely measurable,
and I see how things can slip
from sight, not noticed. I watch his careful
tending to the plums,
circle him, desperate
to track the widening revolution of plums
like comets, a blur now,
impossible to count, I stand
breathless in my father's universe
trusting too much
to gravity.

by Annette Bostrom
Encinitas, California

________________________________

Juggling Haiku

the eye tells the hand         
          where the ball's going to be
the ear whispers when

objects fall in three
         categories:  airborne, held
and linoleum

it always comes down 
          to the star crossed conundrum
two hands and three balls

by Bruce Dethlefsen
Westfield, Wisconsin