FOR MY FATHER

When I was young and sat on my father's

    Knees in bed and read the comics

Or waited for a squirrel to bother, or not to bother

    (It was sad) commemorating a birthday of which

I have no memory.  And yet I feel

    The swings of life, like my father's knees

        That together formed a peak so high

            Everything was revealed,

    Or fell apart, the God's displeased -

        What can I understand before I die?

Meaning!  I want this all to make sense

    Everyday, casting light everywhere like the Sun,

Illuminating each thing in a present so intense

    I could not ask for more.  Done

Will be my struggles, like a vanquished army,

    Fierce fighters curled up in their beds,

        Or sitting on a hill and seeing the world,

            The trees, the farms

    As if on the first day, they raise their heads

        And see the prayer flags of victory unfurl.

Patriotic dissolve to a map of Israel

    Over my bed and a dark window to the airshaft outside.

Foghorns at night tell me I am really

    At home, but wandering through the water, my eyes

Confidently searching in the darkness for what

    I do not know.  Beagles - Sam, Mr. Friday -

        Yipping along the trails, one forever lost

            In the frozen night.

    My mother, dead at forty-seven, pray,

        As she must have, it was all too high a cost...

To go on living!  I see your classic nose,

    Your lipstick applied with the intensity of Hollywood.

You could have been Italian except for those

    Russian Moods.  Tender is parenthood,

And you were not prepared, Faye,

    In your world to fully succeed at that.

        In your hospital aching alone -

            I couldn't relate.

    Simultaneously running through the streets in '68

        I dreamt under your breast, of bone.

With raised fists we cried, "Give us a home

    More loving!"  Inside the bone

Our hearts were one, but numb,

    So many deeper feelings unknown.

Sad hearts crashing on the ribs like a shore

    Of a land we were not sure we wanted.

        The natives they wore business suits

            And settled scores,

    Hatreds from centuries of anger unrequited.

        The Earth shook under our boots.

Music sustained me and for the ability to think

    I am so grateful.  Playing in the open field

Inside myself through my whole body I drank

    The draughts of reason and passion which revealed

Inner truth occasionally but so bright

    It sustained me through the hateful times.

        Singing in the spotlight like a nightingale,

            A day growing through night,

    I worshiped the sun.  Its blessed day rhymed

        My dark, my song, as we inhaled and exhaled.

Barbecue sauce filling up a dirt volcano,

    An orchestra of paper musicians, drawings of gorillas,

Chaim Weitzman, reading the Communist Manifesto,

    A banana split with pineapples and vanillas -

Precious memories, precious gems through which to see

    The All, all full of pain and delight,

        The Juggler with his plates aloft

            Some fall, break into pieces

    Others sail up and catch the bright light

        Of God sparkling and soft.

Everything must touch!  Send feelers out

    And love is like a vine, it is connecting us,

This tangled vine makes words.  Shout,

    "Give us this day our genius!"

And let us be equal to the gift of life!

    For soon we will be worms and wood and mute.

        Speak now! and forever hold this peace

            Up!  The star's wild wife

    Sailing through the sky - from her flute

        Our hearts are the notes of this song without cease.

Aubrey M. Lauterstein, as a young man