Erica Lehrer and Dancing with Ataxia

 

 

After majoring in English at Princeton University, Erica Lehrer got her J.D. from NYU School of Law.  She practiced law for a number of years before turning full-time, to writing.  Her life turned upside down when she was diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy, a neurodegenerative disease. 

 

What they are saying about Erica Lehrer’s Dancing With Ataxia:

Visions of struggle and triumph, told with a clear, powerful, evocative, voice that can lead us into waking dreams.  I highly recommend this book, and commend Erica Lehrer for her hard, glittering work.

-Luis Alberto Urrea, Latino Literature Hall of Fame

In Dancing with Ataxia, Erica Lehrer allows us into her brilliant mind and an existence that has become a mixture of loss, humor, doubt, hope and discovery, as she comes to grips with the effects of an inexplicable disease.  The poems are like little messages found in bottles sent out to the world and fill the reader with insights and revelations that may only come from living on the island of her personal journey…

-Dave Parsons, 2011 Texas State Poet Laureate

 

 

The following poems come from her book Dancing With Ataxia.
 

The Friendswood Public Library carries a copy of Dancing with Ataxia. It can also be found through Amazon with all proceeds going to medical research. 

 

 

Minnows and Koi

By Erica Lehrer

Your eyes are dark bottomless lakes

 

reflecting light from others while seemingly

generating little light of their own; yet I suspect,

were I to tilt back your head and look deep,

deep within (as I might were I to kiss you)

I'd see speckled minnows and golden koi darting

to and fro amidst sea-green ferns, undulating

grasses, inexplicable currents of electricity.

Let us, at least, give it a try.

 

 

THE RIO FRIO

 

By Erica Lehrer

 

For Francine Ringold

 

On the hottest day in July

when even the cedars are shriveled and scorched

she heads to the river

and there

amidst the boulders

she finds five

smooth stones

and one by one

she skips them

with a flick

of her tiny wrist

watching them skim

through the crystalline water

and though she will grow up

and live for many years

in faraway cities

she will never forget

this perfect afternoon

 

 

Wimberley

 

By Erica Lehrer

 

On hot days you could find him
down by the river and up a tree,
enjoying its cool. If she stood on tiptoe,
arms stretched skyward and he reached
his hands through the branches,
he could lift her into the leafy treehouse
where they’d be hidden from view.

Too young to work, too old to play,
they’d stare at each other wordlessly
smiling like maniacs, eating green
grapes, a breeze lifting the damp hair
off their foreheads, arousing in them
a restlessness they didn’t yet understand.

That boy is dead now. The tree, too.
Today, by the river, even the wind is still.

 

 

Chappaqua

 

By Erica Lehrer

 

was the way a single

gnarled branch

from a half-dead tree

would scrape

against the loose strung outdoor lights

on cold winter nights

and twist in the wind –

creaking, groaning –

casting shadows on the wall

above my sleeping love

while I marveled

at the beauty of it all.

 

 

 

Erica Lehrer with members of Net Poets Society at a recent FPL Poetry Series Reading.

 

 More poems by Erica Lehrer:

The Road to Chimayo