Month: November 2017

Making Aliya: Stories From My Father’s Side

Seeing The Pieta

A Memoir

By

Steppenwolf

 

When I was 13 years old, the World’s Fair was held in New York City. My grandparents decided that they wanted to take me, the eldest grandchild, to New York where we would see the World’s Fair and visit relatives.

I had been reading all about this cherished and revered piece of sculpture, the Pieta, being shipped over from Italy so that people could see it. I read in Time Magazine how these workmen packed it and sent it by boat to the United States. I didn’t know the real meaning of this sculpture; I had a vague idea, though.  I knew the name meant “pity” and it was quite important in the Christian faith. I knew it was an artist’s rendering of a mother, the Blessed Mother, holding her dead son, Jesus.

I wanted to see it and my grandfather, being an Orthodox Jew, wouldn’t let me. I remember the scene vividly; my grandmother staying out of the struggle, me standing toe to toe with my grandfather, demanding to be let in. My grandfather was uncomfortable. I explained to him that this was a major work of art, priceless, and I maybe would never get a chance to see it again. Finally he agreed to a compromise.

I must take time and explain this scene clearly. It will always stay in my mind, and sorry for using a cliché, but it is just as if it happened yesterday.

The sculpture sat in the middle of a circular room; the room was in total darkness except for a blue spotlight centered on the Pieta. What a lovely blue it was, too. Instead of walking around to look at the sculpture, people came and stepped onto a wide, moving panel. It moved very slowly in a circle so that you could get a full view of this precious object.

My grandfather gave in—rare, for him—after finding out that I was quite serious about this. He would let me see the Pieta only if he escorted me into the pavilion and stood right next to me. All was quiet as we moved through the darkness, examining the Pieta. Nobody said anything. There were mobs of people milling around outside the pavilion but once in the moving, thick darkness it seemed rude to talk. Even little children stood on the moving apparatus and stared.  I don’t know if my grandfather enjoyed seeing the sculpture and didn’t talk about it, or he felt that he had to stay with me because I was only 13. But if it were not for my grandfather I would never have seen the Pieta.

 

Barn Series 2

The Swallows Have Come Back

By

Steppenwolf

 

You’ve fallen in love with the swallows

You can’t get enough of them

And it’s the most blissful romance

You could hope for.

Sleek and swift

Delicate and determined

And the thing that drives you

Most crazy in love is that

They are disciplined yet free.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Following the same elliptical air paths

As they always did

making figure eights

Around and around the barn

Snapping insects out of the air

And as in any romance

Your heart belongs to them.

 

 

 

Barn Series 1

Stones

by

Steppenwolf

 

Gathered on the ground near the drain

Small stones sit in flat configurations

Washed by the clean rain an infinite number of times.

Colors never seen by God or his artists

Nor planned by hired experts

But delicate like an insect’s wings

So subtle that it makes you yearn for something

And you don’t even know what it is.

Maybe it’s a desire to copy those colors

To be the one who could actually do it

To capture what nature does effortlessly.

 

History

By

Steppenwolf

 

First love stretches by the side of the pool

Lazy-baked in the sun

Hair wet with lust

A warm gust of wind

Whips up the fire

No release of desire

Until doors are locked after school.

 

Second love lives in rooms up the stairs

Eats books for breakfast

At night walks the city

The sidewalks are gritty

Steel turned into gravel

Its secrets unravel

As the River, anxious to speak

Will not dare.

 

Third love signs on the dotted line.

Digs up the garden

A roof to keep dry

Groceries to buy

Its belly grows and expands

Wider than two hands

And says what I made is mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Train Station

By

Steppenwolf

I live in a place of tiny towns

Where it takes days to deliver the mail

Everything is slow

And when people are done using something—

A fence, a car, a trailer, a train station—

They just walk away from it and let it slowly

Rot and fall apart and descend into the earth.

The abandoned train station

Where ghosts walk

I look at it and feel the press

Of mill hands loading grain into the cars

And I have this desire to

Lay down on the long-disused tracks

To dare the ghost train to emerge

Out of the gloom.

 

 

Your Eyes

For my husband

By

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

I went to the door to ask you something but I forget what it was

Was it something to do with dinner being ready I can’t even remember

Remember though that I looked out at you sitting on the porch

Porch built by our lovely Amish neighbors always so cheerful

Cheerful you are when you find little snakes on the warmed stone steps

Steps to take in love and looking at your blue eyes

Eyes staring off out into the universe having a lovely dream

Dream while the hamburgers were cooking and I was hungry

Hungry, yes, but looking at your eyes and the sublime look you had

Had your eyes ever been so full of light I can’t remember

Remember though that you rarely have a moment like that

That you are peaceful, at rest, gazing out on all good things

Things so many that I looked at you for a brief part of a second

And quietly closed the door.

 

 

Warm-Housing

By

Leslie Golding Mastroianni

 

The two will rise up to the sky ballooned by warm currents of air

Air is to breathe apart and together while the two sing songs and hold hands.

Hands not only for holding but helping and building and making

Making a dream that is called a Dream of digging and flowers and bricks.

Bricks hold well their walking boots and others come and join

Join with the two that is more than the two and the circle is wreathed with red.

Red is our blood and what makes us strong but it’s also the color of love

Love is two red hearts made one and the roof is stout over their heads.

Heads that think powerful thoughts flying up and circle the house like swallows

Swallows always return every year and swooping they never collide.

Collide will the two oh yes they will but the price is more than affordable

Affordable for warming and housing and Dreaming/ the two will always be two.

 

Me and Solitude

After a long period of spending most of my time alone some lovely people came into my life and had the effect of waking me up. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with solitude. I still need a lot of it.

But the times and my life are changing. I met several very nice lady friends who share my religious background. A lot of energy is flowing in. We plan on meeting once a month to discuss anything we feel like.

My husband began writing a blog which made me want to go back to that form of communication. I’m always happier when I write anything.

Finally I established a page of my own where I’m planning to devote time and space to what I’m creating right now and that doesn’t just include writing.