digital art: ralph murre
Defining
Moments
by
Jessica Goody
These
are the things I am made of:
the
cupboard of dishes
accrued
by each successive generation:
the
monogrammed wedding glasses;
soup
plates at every Seder
fiesta-festive
with color,
wreathed
with exotically plumed birds.
The
kitchen table scarred with age,
paint
rubbed off by shoulders
long
slouched against aged seat backs.
And
my rainbow mug, the purple stripe fading
from
each sore-throat tea and honey,
each
winter cocoa, each cup of
homemade
chicken soup.
These
are the things I am made of:
afghans
crocheted by three generations
in
many different houses.
The
carved wooden Moses
bearing
staff and sandals,
carefully
traveled from Israel
The
wedding menorah,
clumps
of wax dug from candleabra stems
with
dutiful scrutiny;
cocktail
toothpicks and aluminum foil.
The
ritual as familiar, if not as revered
as
the candle-lighting itself.
The
old cookbooks,
Grandmother’s,
Great-Grandmother’s,
both
maternal and paternal,
wedding
gifts for setting up house.
Book
jackets fraying and torn,
pages
brown and cracked
as
the old hands who turned them,
stained
with succulence
from
favorite recipes.
The
grand piano, a Steinway,
gone
now, admired and ignored,
ivories
chipped, lacquer scratched
by
four generations,
to
whom a respect for music
came
more readily
than
a talent for playing it.
These
are the things I am made of:
the
photo albums from before my time,
the
adhesive pages brittle and no longer sticky;
the
label-tape peeling off.
The
rank saltiness
of
the Atlantic at high tide;
and
gnarled trees with tumorous roots,
their
withered knotholes like dried fruit.
~
first published in Cyclamens and Swords
