night

for elie

 

 

 

I remember as a child, burying the pet turtle.

My sister, on one knee, patting the earth down upon it with an open palm.

Most kids have had tiny green turtles

 

with the red slash on the sides of their heads. Yet, it is still hard

to know when death finally comes. Not the unburned dottle of it's youth.

Not the froth and bits of turnip.

 

Not the fit, nor the overturned Neptune with his soot gray shirt

around a flame cleft. Not the noise of the Anglicans. Not the

singing of that unrealizable dream.

 

Just the death march of a child. Go on: A reptile wrapped in wax paper

or a chrysalis of gold, but so carefully lowered down at night fall.

 

Dad wore his good pants and mother looking from behind the curtains of bright

water and oft colored butterflies.

 

It could be Birkenau or

the dizzying array of burning Kotex's or African incense we bought from

the Ugandan's on Second Ave.

 

But in this half circle we prayed this time for Ana, Eric's mom,

newly diagnosed with breast cancer, that it hadn't reached her bones.

Like the palm of a little hand

 

Tzipora was the metaphor we've kept alive all these years as reminder

that God is only so to erase the half made memories of loss.

"Men to the right", women and children to the left".

 

Reviews

[Terpsichore]

We are all just pet turtles; bones descending to ashes in the pre-ordained order; though 'tis awfully hard to accept on a personal level.

I imagine Moses wept when his woman turned left instead of right.

T

[caesarkreshen]

this is good, strange use of 'the' turtle in the first line.

Seems to lose a little between butterflies and it could be, seems like separate things.

Best line: Just the death march of a child. Go on: A reptile wrapped in wax paper

enjoy.

[h d e rushin]

first of all, where have you been. So good to see your name and read your words again.....thanks dana

[caesarkreshen]

in the world of not publishing, or 'almost.' Supposedly you can share stuff if you have to log in to view. I am taking advantage of that w/ random things cuz I want to force myself to go through the thousands of pages of notebooks I have written since I last did concerted typing. It's working.

Glad to see things are mostly the same here.

[emmajoy]

Smiling, tearful.. emotions mixed but as always, admiring your ability to paint with words. .

We carry our childhood with us, a gentle load on age's shoulders, reminders of how death hits the innocent and how - after a while, it etched its awareness more than deeply. You write so ... gently.. yet hauntingly.. somehow..

[h d e rushin]

thank you emmajoy.. for being here. I love you....dana

[W.k.kortas]

Valediction raised to the power of parable. 'Nuff said.

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dear friend.........dana

[Ed Hart]

to take that old picture and paint a sonata...your forte

[h d e rushin]

thank you Ed Hart for those kind words my friend......dana

[Corset]

Like parting the red sea, men on one side women on the other, in the middle is Moses carrying a big stick and a prayer to let his people go, never, not as long as tree limbs grasp for the clouds to pull themselves up above the water , they can't breathe in the oxygen and we cant breathe without it.

[h d e rushin]

interesting words my friend........love you forever....dana

[Corset]

liar...liar...shirt on fire...lol

[jacob erin-cilberto]

oh my...how you brought back memories of the little sliders and how we wept when they died.

and we buried them along with a part of ourselves...

wax paper feelings slipping into the dirt with the turtles...and yet this poem culminates in the idea of families having to watch each other die...the cancer of hate and the death it had brought to so many in those camps...and those turtles with the red ears who survived, lived life long and slowly, with all the memories..staying safe in their shells...yet some spoke out from then till now...till silenced...

beautiful poem, dana.

j.

[h d e rushin]

the older I get the more i'm reminded of what childhood might have been like.....thank you my friend for those kind words.....dana

[Lyn Anderson]

I needed to read you right now. You are like ice on my sore forehead. A cool glass of water on an exceptionally hot day. Refreshing. The way you tied together the images of holocaust, breast cancer, and childhood loss is just beautiful. One minor note -- its shouldn't have an apostrophe (its youth)

[h d e rushin]

I love you KL..........thanks for those kind words my friend....dana

[Lyn Anderson]

I mean it. Sometimes we log on and find exactly what we need. My poem, "frog for solitude" was inspired by you. :)