I understand about "thank you." And I'm glad if my work helps my Jewish wife and family members and friends feel less alone. But, to cite the chapbook's second epigraph, which quotes Sam Harris: "We all live in Israel now. It’s just that most of us haven’t realized it yet."
Wow
I don't know how to read this without tears
the power of a simply said truth.....
She was suppossed to give me a sort of an interview,
About a subject we've been both passionate
We've been friends for years,
Flew and drove to see each other,
she admired this in me, I loved that in her.
For twenty years.
This feeling of warmth, you know?
Couple days after the seventh,
She wrote to me: "you know I am awfully busy,
Believe it or not, not even time to turn the TV on!"
I said politely "of course"
She wrote "thank you, I know you'd understand"
I said I did. Of course.
But I never fully did.
Actually, almost nobody wrote anything at all,
after suppossedly loving me for decades,
afer me loving them,
After being so close,
After exchanging letters, so intimate,
after sharing together childhood or youth or what have you, life.
Never phoned, never asked a simple stupid question
"How are you? How are yours?"
Just silence.
And people might wonder: why I am not saying this or that,
What do I think about this or that,
I open my mornings with sobs and psalms and prayers and calls "ARE YOU ALIVE?"
Since that day when Russia started bombing Ukraine,
No, I don't have in me to talk to people, almost all of them,
Because I'm exhaused to the core,
Because they left me and mine in silence,
Because they might consider it kindness even,
Personal kindness for me,
Because they might not have found the words and then it seemed stupid.
I forgave them all, what else can I do, really,
I do poorly with grudges
Yet I'll never forget.
I regressed, I have to go on, to be there, to be here, to stay alive for people who need me
To be with those that lost people or land or hope,
I'm in a survival mode,
It's a quiet one,
I'm stripped of all the embellishments,
I lost all my suppossed brilliance,
I've very few dreams left
I'm like that very little girl, from the story I want to translate from ages:
"Тихо будет жить, тихо, чтобы никто ничего не узнал. "
This is heartbreaking. I am so sorry. (Nadezhda Teffi?)
Thank you.
You write very good poems, so. Sorry...
Yes, I really love Teffi. I've several stories in mind I'd love to translate. It's a bit intimidating, also one needs energy etc. Maybe one day.
each of the postings from your out of print chapbook have made me stop and take a deep breath
I'll dm you about a copy. thank you seems somehow wrong to say and yet it is fitting
I understand about "thank you." And I'm glad if my work helps my Jewish wife and family members and friends feel less alone. But, to cite the chapbook's second epigraph, which quotes Sam Harris: "We all live in Israel now. It’s just that most of us haven’t realized it yet."
Straight on impact.
I was in tears when I said this
Gut punch. Such sadness.
ooph.