USA

nlowsky@hotmail.com

before

she had been raised to sing
other people’s songs
but in the third morning of the new time
with the wisteria blooming outside her
kitchen window
and the shadow of the earth
about to fall upon the moon
she looked at the sky
the comet had inhabited
saw four geese fly east

heard the telephone ringing
the man in her house  running
up circular stairs
calling her name

and suddenly remembered
the lips of the one who had sworn her
to silence
in dark waters
         whispering-
wait for me-
one morning when the children are gone
              i’ll call-
put on your brown sandals
wrap yourself up
in your tree of life shawl
come walk with me
    to devil mountain
singing the song
we were singing before you
       were born-

a grandmother speaks
from the other side

don’t leave me out
you don’t know how often
i’ve touched you
since i first felt you leap
fish out of the blue
in the new world

i took cancer’s way out
of the barbed wire
concentration camp
pulling your right eye
to wander after me
before you were even born
that was my mark
in passing

some call it a lazy eye
we know it’s the eye that sees
the other world

your parents
made every attempt
to correct
your vision
black patch on a baby face
grey metal optical machine
that hurt the bridge
of your nose when you were six
the lady with beehive hair
told you to make the boy
you saw with your left eye
play with the baseball
you saw with your right eye

your head hurt
you couldn’t make it happen
no one in your family
played ball they played
the violin
the piano
the symphonic station
on the radio

your father
my son
kept a photograph of me
on a textured yellow shawl
with black fringe
on the grand piano
the lid of my left eye droops
eye of grief and prophesy
even now
the future i was seeing
cannot be
imagined

it took two operations
the ether mask
coming down on you
the last number you heard
was 99
it was i who turned you back
its not your time i told you
like i did
when my daughter out of auschwitz
came to live in your room
put a spell on
you
almost left
your body
your mother was sick in bed
your father listening to
schubert’s unfinished symphony
behind closed doors
no one could disturb him
it was i who banged
on his heart to make him see
you wandering off
             in the direction of  your right
               eye-
                         in the meadow of the shadow
            a rock
a coiled green and yellow snake
an open mouth
you almost falling in
                                        to my realm-

your father’s urgent hands
fling you over his shoulder
the needle in your arm
the hospital room
when they take the bandages off your eyes
the world has gone
crooked-

stairs at weird angles
walls and corners
on the radio
the army mccarthy hearings
some of the hounded voices are people
your father knows

it is your job to keep your eyes on
the ones who are after us
they took me away
they’re coming back
every day in bed recovering
from surgery
you prepare a complete report
they put oppenheimer on the stand
they’re accusing einstein
their voices growl and bark

point of order mr. chairman
point of order!


i fade
your eyes
hitched together
have stopped seeing
things

you have turned
the age i was when everything
stopped-

the train to auschwitz that took
your grandfather
the pyramid of skulls
that is
my grave

don’t leave me out
i’ve let you be for many years
this is the time of life i never got to live
you need my eye
of grief i need your wandering eye
that sees
                         me-

 i’m here
 i’ve made my mark
     on you

maybe she’ll show

maybe she’ll show
and maybe she won’t
my red flower
my brown stain
first seen
by my sharpeyed mother
my ache
my shame
my descent from a cave in the earth
my place in the eyes of the moon
my delta
my tides

she has ways
strange ways
maybe she’ll fill me with rust
fill me with ravings
with the rant of her fire
maybe she’ll kiss me
maybe her lips
will entice me to flower
hot rose
to astonish a lover
maybe she’ll drag me down
by the weight of my breasts
and bury my riot of body
down
down
below the bottom
of the sea

maybe she’ll swim back to me
sweet manatee
willow that weeps
angel that strikes
singing the ten thousand things
brushing my hair
oiling my skin
slapping my face with her hand of what’s real

maybe she’ll never come back
my siren
my half fish
my banshee
my wanton
my slut

where has she gone?
the shadows grow longer
we are moving away from the sun

where are my mother’s eyes now
and how will i know
the shape of my lust?

Initiate

White Temple cut in gray rock
I have washed the stone floors
I have put the full blown
white peony
in amber glass
only Hecate knows the dark center

Through an arched window
blood red madrone stains the rocky slope
Snake is sacred here
also mongoose

I await you
daughter of Isis
lover of the blood lord
sister of the frenzied one

climb the stony mountain in your bare feet
bring me your mouth and young breasts
white cave is the place I have prepared for you

© All Copyright, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.