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Open Poetry #5
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Marta
Junior Member
since 1999-12-20
Posts 18


0 posted 2000-01-12 10:13 PM


Dear friends,
This will be my last post for some time.  I must keep up with other literary projects and I find it almost impossible to give the board the attention it deserves. I'll be back some time in the near future, when things have slowed down a bit.  A big hello to everyone and to Balladeer, who introduced me to this forum.


Old woman, Jewish woman,
eyes split across furrows,
filled with a sad look
that burns away in the chill of distance,
like a sunset red and moribund.
Your moonface rises
between the lips of the black night
and melts the stars with her icy aura.

A life lived on a tightrope,
a somersault in each fall,
the shadow of death reaching farther,
over your head, a wicked trapeze.
It brought you to this abyss,
slipping under the fences,
laughing at the torch of life,
blending the colors of your reverie.
Mother, mother,
it took away your best hope,
from your entrails
an infant.

Love and life, the faint beam of light
in the semi-darkness of infinity;
beginning and end of a wheel
with unknown aim spinning.
Old woman, your faith isn't lost yet,
it fills the silence and sustains your soul
above your dreams, in a garden of lilacs.

You were the unwilling bride of a human sea,
walked the march of the dispossessed
and with the force of your steps,
conquered the virgin snow;
left the hue of your warm breath
in the cold and sad dawn.
Woman, with your back turned to the world
on the lost Carpathian range,
you joined the fugitive horde
vanishing with the wind
in those frigid winter months.

Love, love, or is it hatred?  Aren't they
the two burning candles of selfishness?
Love, soaked with the blood of innocence,
wrapped in the silken skin of your newborn.
Love and hate, fed by hope,
like an ivy of roses and thorns.
And you, the flower
of the fallen.

Love, blind in your feminine eyes,
open anew in days of brightness and color,
saltpeter, blue and orange;
blossoms and olive.
Swollen with  the cypress trees
and golden cupolas of the Promised Land.  
Love, lost once more,
dodging you like the toy
you never had.

Woman, you cry, this time on American land,
you hold my hands and beg me.
You look at me, Jewish mother,
and pose the questions.

I do not have an answer to your whys.
Or explanations about faith.
I do not understand love, and if I do,
then I have not loved, and if I have, I was deceived,
because I believed I loved someone
when it was myself whom I was loving.
Old woman, in your cry
I find the sorrow of your adversity,
the human solitude hidden in the walls we build,
the chill of our own lies.

You weep, often in self-pity,
and I lack those magic answers
that would lift the burden of your agony.
Old woman, love burns like the flame,
turns slowly to embers and then to dark
and when we look back
we can see what's left behind,
black poppies among red fields.



© Copyright 2000 Marta - All Rights Reserved
Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA
1 posted 2000-01-12 10:21 PM


WOW! You certainly know how to make an exit! Hurry back, Marta. Your talent will be greatly missed.
Marta
Junior Member
since 1999-12-20
Posts 18

2 posted 2000-01-12 10:53 PM


Thank you Mike, you are so kind.  I will miss everyone's talent just as much.  The day only has twenty four hours...and I have fallen behind in some important tasks. I'll be back as soon as I can. The board is great, truly amazing group of people.  Well done.
Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648

3 posted 2000-01-12 11:09 PM


Marta, this is excellent! Please don't let your absence be a long one!

 Denise


Elizabeth
Deputy Moderator 1 TourDeputy Moderator 1 Tour
Moderator
Member Ascendant
since 1999-06-07
Posts 6871
Minnesota
4 posted 2000-01-13 09:37 PM


Beautiful, Marta! And hurry back-you will be missed.

Elizabeth

 "Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke
Tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York."



Rosemary J. Gwaltney
Senior Member
since 1999-08-26
Posts 997
northern mountains, Idaho
5 posted 2000-01-13 10:00 PM


This is the first poem I have seen of yours, and it is magnificent!  What a story!  What a picure!  What an overwhelming ocean of emotion!  I, too, hope you come back soon!
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