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.
by carol l. skolnick
One million years ago, a woman walked East,
Away from fertile fields and plains,
Through thick and verdant jungles
And all manner of wild beast.
Thousands of years later
She squatted and bore a sand-child,
Lighter of complexion and longer of nose;
The child’s hips and back widened
To carry generations
Across parting seas and desert drifts.
Saving, sometimes, her brood from starvation,
Snakes, men and the brutal sun.
When the girl stayed in one place long enough
To put down roots,
Her grandchildren were pulled up and away,
North and west and to the Far East.
Outliving plagues, fallen empires and murderous
invaders,
Their dusky skins retained the oil and color of
Mediterranean olives.
They brought with them wailing chants, rich foods,
rich devotions,
And the many laws that kept them awake and aware,
protected and apart.
Raped by or married to Romans, Mongols and Gauls,
Persians, Greeks and Hindus,
They knew who their mothers were,
Never sure of their fathers.
So they became a melting pot:
Multicolored, polyglot.
Lullabies and legends gave them a name
And castes like Levi or Cohain.
They did the work permitted them:
Merchants, butchers, moneylenders,
Mothers, rabbis, doctors, thieves.
Again and again, made to leave and leave
Until they reached the sunless places,
The lands of fair hair and pale faces,
The tundras, gulags and barren acres
No one else would have.
Less and less did they resemble the women walking
’cross conjoined continents.
Less were they like desert dwellers, wrapped in robes,
sheltered by tents;
Less like Latins, sensuous and juicy as green grapes
ripening in the sun,
Less like Orientals stained golden by turmeric,
fragrant with cumin and cardamom.
What was left for us but memory: a ruined temple,
And a tale of hard survival,
And indelicate facial features,
Genetic diseases,
And praises for the One
Who freed us from the Pharaoh
But led us to Torquemada,
And the Czars, and Hitler,
And aliyah back to the desert sands,
A seasick voyage in steerage
To Lower East Side tenements,
And shtetls in Winnipeg,
To working class Brooklyn,
Noveau riche Hollywood,
Middle class Skokie.
From tailor shops to tailored business suits,
And recessions, and politics,
And medical school,
And a midlife crisis in Maui,
And old age in Miami?
Yes, we praise the One
Who gave to us the means
To build a new temple
Where landsmen from London,
San Francisco, Paris,
Tehran, Johannesburg,
Forest Hills and Buenos Aires
Can meet a few times a week or year
To sing praises to the Adonai
In whom we pretend to,
Want to, unbelievably
Still believe.
II
What is left is what is enough — dayenu! —
For me today, and for you,
In a world that won’t let us forget
How to remember.
As I look in the mirror, I see them in
The deviated septum, the olive complexion,
The joy of my dance,
The plaintive wail of a soul still longing for home.
I see the women walking:
The women who walked the continents.
They carried me here.
They carry me still.
Carol L. Skolnick is a writer, artist and performer living in Santa Cruz. Her work spans poetry, personal essays, fiction, reviews and memoir, and has appeared in literary journals, magazines, anthologies and local newspapers. www.facebook.com/carolskolnickauthoress
Works may be submitted to fiction editor Ilana DeBare at [email protected] or poetry editor Joan Gelfand at [email protected]. Fiction excerpts may run up to 2,500 words, but only 800 words will appear in the print edition, with the rest appearing online.