Archive 11/13/11 - (3)

 

   

Orphaned

                                                                  

Alone, lonelier, more deeply forlorn than my bones and flesh go,

I set off in any direction that might accept my orphaned spirit,

Beckon me home, to my forebears, buried in their ancestry,

As heir apparent, custodian of their heritage,

Which they've been listening to me record, assiduously, for years,

 

Wondering if I'll arrive somewhere, anywhere, on time,

In time to express my love for my parents, now lying side by side,

For my father's mother and father, their parents,

And my father's great-grandfather Daniel and his wife, Annie,

Who, in 1875, fled Ukraine's shtetl pogroms, for America.

 

Volitionlessly, sympathetically, anxiously,

My breathing blood compels my solitudinous heart westerly.

Soon, I'm stepping on and between unrecognizable plots

Dotting Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery,

Hoping, praying I'll locate Daniel and Annie's isolated grave,

 

So that I might tell them how much I miss them,

Though he died before my birth and I was ten when she passed.

Within a labyrinth of minutes, I find them, whisper my presence.

They recognize me as the scion of their son Lou's son Saul — L.D.

Now, I'm two blocks further west, in B'nai Amoona's old section,

 

Where my father's maternal and paternal parents sleep.

Their sighs stir the breeze, trees, welcoming me.

We speak briefly before I leave, cross the road,

Walk over to my parents, upon whose embracing gravestone

I place my loneliness, as though it were a rock. I'm home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/13/11 - (3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 

 
   
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