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Old Man Smiling

Posted by Arlene Gay Levine | Dec 8, 2025 | Poetry | 0 |

Old Man Smiling

Loping along, beaming
to himself
wrapped up in a Mystery
that needs no answers
the old man nods, laughs,
grins so broadly
his mouth is a bridge
to the World to Come where
Mohammed or Mary or Moses
swallow all his worries
and whys like a trout
gulps a fly in spring,
when creation,
suddenly unlocked
from the icy concerns of winter,
flows free again.

Old man glowing, poet
of the inscrutable, an Abraham among men
who has finally understood his Isaac,
against all odds,
will grow to manhood.

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About The Author

Arlene Gay Levine

Arlene Gay Levine

Arlene Gay Levine is the author of 39 Ways to Open Your Heart: An Illuminated Meditation (Conari/Red Wheel Weiser Press) and Movie Life (Finishing Line Press). Her prose and poetry have found a home in The New York Times, an Off-Broadway show, anthologies, journals such as Quest:Journal of the Theosophical Society in America,” radio programs and online. Her poem “The Climb” won 2nd Place in The New York Encounter 2020 Poetry Contest judged by Dana Gioia. Always interested in the mysteries of the human heart and healing what ails it, she became an educator, curriculum writer and staff trainer in the NYC school system. She has served as a judge for The Illinois State and Virginia State Poetry Society Contests and won a New York Times Company Foundation Scholarship to study writing at New York University. Most recently her poems appeared in Valley View Review, Bronze Bird Review, Verse-Virtual, Highland Park Poetry and Poets for Human Rights.

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The Braided Way is a framework to see every faith tradition as a strand, braided into a larger whole of spiritual awareness. In the Braided Way, combining spiritual practice from various faiths allow us to explore sacred experience and wonder in forms that resonate with our personal spiritual needs and sacred intuitions. In today’s culture, many people shun religious dogma, but yearn for spiritual connection. The Braided Way allows the ceremonies and practices of multiple faiths to be available without the confinements of cultural dogma.

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