First Edition features new original works by Northern California Jewish writers. Appearing the first issue of each month, it includes a poem and an excerpt from a novel or short story.
Toward the end, she took to dozing
in the Torah class, seated as always
at the rabbi’s right hand, hair swept
up in an elegant tumble of umber
and ash.
Still, the old ferocity
smoldered there, never more than
an eylash flicker away: What
is the essence of faith? the strict
Brooklyn bark biting off the edges of
each question, the old Bolshevik fervor
burning behind coke-bottle glasses.
“What is the meaning of my long life?”
less a question than a challenge,
less a challenge than a prayer.
And, at the very end, in failing light,
when all the answers hovered just
above her bed, bright wings braced
for take-off, someone questioned if
it wasn’t time to send for the rabbi?
No, she whispered. Not now.
I’ve no time for chit-chat now.
Jacqueline Kudler of Sausalito teaches classes in memoir writing and literature at the College of Marin. Her poems have appeared in numerous reviews, magazines and anthologies. Her most recent poetry collection, Easing into Dark, was published in 2012. Kudler received the Marin Poetry Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.