Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 60

Your earrings

For first seder I'm wearing
your earrings, turquoise and onyx.

Will they act as microphones
transmitting wirelessly to olam ha-ba

every compliment on your jewelry,
the sound of your youngest grandson

singing the questions high and clear?
In return maybe they'll whisper to me

a request to nudge my father on this night
of all nights not to wear bluejeans.

Maybe they'll let my hear an echo
of your fingers at a piano on high.

 

One Mom gone

Twelve's a reminder
Mom was a Gemini.

Eleven, for the dreams
she told at breakfast.

Ten for her nails
gleaming bright.

Nine, the months
of pregnancy...

Five, her children.
Four, cups and questions.

Three for the siblings
gathered for seder.

Two for our parents ,
the duo now broken.

One is for Mom
who's still gone.

 

14 Nisan

How many times
will I reach
for the phone
to send you
a photo today?

My sister, cooking.
Your wedding silver
on the tables.
My son burning
last night's chametz...

And when time
comes for the
four questions, I'll
ache to make
a video that

I can't send.
Can I trust
that you're watching
from the place
where you are?

 

No answer

Dad says he visits you
at the cemetery
every day, except
Saturdays when the gates
are closed. (Has

grass begun to grow?
I don't ask.) We agree
you wouldn't care
about the words of kaddish
but it's what we know

to do. He says he's
mad at you for dying
asks again and again why
an incurable lung condition.
I have no answer.

 

Four questions

Will you and your parents sit down to seder on high
on the night when we sit down to seder below?

Who sings the Four Questions, the person in the family
most newly-arrived to the afterlife?

Will you thank the Holy One, Blessed Be God
for lifting you with mighty hand and outstretched arm

out of the Mitzrayim of your bodies,
your illnesses, cancer or dementia or broken-down lungs?

Will you dip parsley in salt water, or are the tears
you cried in this world enough to last you for eternity?

 

Before Pesach

The year your mother died
just before Pesach

I remember my grandfather
at the seder.

He had aged, inexplicably.
He looked lost.

But I don't remember you
that year: were you

grieving, did you struggle?
I was a teenager

and we didn't communicate
much, you and I.

I hope someone asked you
how you were.

I hope someone told you
it was okay

to grieve your father's
diminishment,

to feel her absence like
a missing limb.

I hope there was comfort
in the words, the wine

the songs, the soup --
how though the ground

of your being had shifted,
the seder hadn't changed.

 

My third bicycle

My first bicycle was hot pink.
When I was eight and skipped PE
for weeks on end you hired coach
to tutor me. She taught me

how to catch a frisbee,
not flinch from a softball,
ride a bike without training wheels.
My second was electric blue

and I rode it barefoot around
the curves of Contour Drive
past magnolia and honeysuckle
with wind in my hair.

When I grew hips I put the bike away.
I felt like a galumphing goose
next to you, perfect petite
size zero sparrow.

By college when my boyfriend
invited me to bike across Nantucket
I demurred, sure he wouldn't
want me if he saw me huff and puff.

But I remember your red Schwinn
with a tiny seat bolted to the back
for me. I remember the freedom
of skimming along Contour

once I was old enough to go
further than you could see.
Mom, today I bought a bicycle.
It's black and sturdy, German,

a bike for a middle-aged woman.
When I go riding with my son
I'll say a shehecheyanu. Maybe
I'll feel you perched behind me.

They say the body never forgets
these old motions. I wouldn't mind
forgetting how to resent
every ounce and inch

that made me not like you.
From where you are now
can you teach me how to thank
this clunky, sturdy frame?

This earth our home

When the house lights went down

I started to cry. It's just

a third grade concert -- songs

about "this earth our home"

with canned accompaniment

and four third-grade classes

fidgeting on the risers -- but

you'd have loved it. Of course

his whole life you were too sick

to travel to see him shine.

It wouldn't have occurred to him

to expect you there, but

I would have texted you a video

the minute I got to the car.

You'd have watched it later

when you woke up, when you felt

up to checking your phone.

You would have sent a string

of celebratory emojis. You'd have

laughed that he knows already

how to make a mike stand taller,

praised his stage presence...

I wiped my eyes furiously, hoping

no one noticed the ridiculous mom

in the second row who was moved

to tears by songs about recycling.

This is how I send you video now,

Mom: these poems I don't know

if you can hear from where you are,

this earth no longer your home.

Bedtime

Tonight at bedtime
a distraught boy.

A stuffed animal
left at grandma's.

He keeps searching,
saying "Sealie? Sealie?"

The thing is,
Mom, he says,

you don't know
what it's like

to have loveys
who really matter.

My brown bear
and red dog

are both gone,
but I know

how it feels
to love helplessly

from afar. When
we invoke angels

surrounding, we ask:
look after Sealie?

The same way
that last night

I asked them
to accompany you.

 

Dance class

Parent observation night
at the dance school.

I caught my son with my camera
in an idle moment

running his hands through his hair.
He looked like a teenager.

When I was nine
I still threw my arms

around your neck, but by fourteen
I kept my distance.

We no longer spoke
the same language. Maybe

I'll be spared that: we're not
mother and daughter, he and I.

(As far as I know. Yes, Mom,
his gender expression is up to him.

Don't roll your eyes. Like God
he's becoming who he's becoming.)

But if he grows
to mistrust me, I hope

I live long enough
to make it to the other side

as you and I made it
to the other side

even though I know
you'd be relieved to know

he's not the only boy
in his dance class this year.