EBHS Folio

Routinely taking down the flag,
Steadily descends the emblem of his country.
Cascading into calloused, weathered fingers,
The frayed cloth molds into his strong embrace.
Upon his chest, he holds it close:
"Never let it touch the ground."

Grandma shuffles,
Sipping strong tea,
Telling stories of China,
Feeding flowers from Mother's Day past.
Practices English with them-
"red-ah, orange-ee-ah"
She recites to the air.
Wearing thin flimsy soles,
She shuffles back in.

MOM

No time for TV or tea.
As all bodily muscles collaborate
To fulfill your motherly duty,
That comes three times a day.

Cleaning.
Cooking.
Cutting.
Boiling.

Though eyes droop,
Knowing no rest will come.
Yearning for the white
Cotton-filled bag
That meets you in slumber.

Your focused, busy legs
Drag you to awaiting toils.
And work worn fingers
Continually jumping,
Like those of a caffeine stricken Mozart on the piano.

My Father

As the last light dimmed the town,
His long, lean legs
Dragged his body forward and
Found their way home.

With only cold air to greet him
He dropped down to his chair,
While his body hung,
As if boneless.

After one deep breath,
He bit his lips,
Tapped his face,
His tears now all dried and gone,
Faithfully grabbed his pen,
And slowly moved across the paper.

Grandma Sally

The stove is full
Each burner covered
A different dish on each
Kugels, blintzes, plain macaroni
She toils just the same

Stirs each mixture
Seasons each pot
Pours new concoctions together
Without noticing the hours ticking by

She wipes sauce from hand to dress
Not wanting to contaminate a single dish
But fails to notice the sweat drenching her brow
Or the pain pounding in her hands

For herself she saves the blackened toast
In her mind this is enough

Two sets of footprints
Weaving between the diminutive weeds
Running through the garden
Into the dusty windblown path

Now surrounded by overgrown weeds
Crackling in the wind
One imprint lightening
Leaving the other behind

Reminder of a Great-Grandmother

On the dark oak dresser,
Beside the bed she once occupied,
Lay a heart-shaped pendant.
Indented gold from a child's teeth,
My teeth,
And a name that does not exist.
Esther, her name,
Engraved Hester
From an immigrant accent.
Only I know
The true meaning.

Staring at the pendant
Now hanging from my neck,
Memories of her flood my mind.
A smile forms on my lips
With the realization
'Hester' will forever be with me.

Five New Year's have passed
Looking out the same window
You are still not used to
A sky painted blue and
Rows of standardized houses
With verdant, manicured lawns

Today you bring out your dusty shoes,
Two sizes too small,
To ride on a two-wheeled rusted contraption
Your chest moves- up, down, up, down
Your feet - left, right, left right

The light catches your eyes
Revealing wrinkles to hold back
The tears that fall down your cheek
Each one for every lost memory
Every lonely night
Every embittered second alone
Without love, his love.

Bubbie
My Bubbie and I
Twirl around the table
With microphone spoons,
Our melody clashes with the TV;
As she slices kosher salami.

As she rescues the bread from the toaster,
My eyes fall on a faded photo
Black and white
Creased, in a golden frame.

A three-year old girl
With a wind-scraped face,
Terrified eyes, peeled,
Frantically seeking out the predator,
But a tear in each eye
Forces a blink--
Her little hand bound
By her father's desperate squeeze
That would not withstand
The Nazis' sever.

An adjacent photo
Sixty years past,
Her lips gently curled
In black-and-white smile
But a shiny tear
Lingers in one eye.

You would get up early in the morning,
Throw on old tight clothes
That made you wince.
Then you would hunt
Eyes still sharp
Searching for filth
And finding none
The sweeping, cleaning, cooking
Would be enough
To make anyone stoop
But not you, you continue to labor,
Never stopping

Dust was never a match for you,
Neither was filth,
You finish your task
Always in record time
To be rewarded with more filth
You sit,
Reminiscing on past deeds
Never stopping

What lies behind those eyes,
Yellowed with age
No one ever asked.
You pace around the house
Each heavy step in rhythm
With each heavy breath
As time reaches itself long for you,
But never stopping

Abhir Adhate

Hymns of
Forgotten generations
Roll off your tongue
Under the heavy influence
Of sweet pungent incense,
And the warm glow of a hundred oil lamps,
Light the dark home.

Cold bronze statues
Of a hundred g-ds
Bathed in a sea of
Ivory milk,
Your cream colored hands
delicately sweep back and forth over
The chipped and blemished figurines,
Trying to restore them,
To their former prestige.

The lamps’ golden glow
Gradually fades,
Leaving you in the dark

Ammama

Waiting in line for the bathroom,
Two before her, Six after her,
Constant movement around the house.
Time is no luxury.
Her warm dishes of food waiting for her siblings
Since mother is ill.
First to wake, last to leave.

Walking to school,
Time is never lost.
First in her class, but,
Being praised is of no concern.
Coming home,
Lunch on the table
Before the house fills with clamor.
Always doing more than what was asked for.

Waiting until her brothers and sisters
Are taken care of.
After all are fed and put to sleep,
Under the black twinkling canopy,
Alone,
Sitting with books
She finishes her studies.
Then, sleeps to do it all over again
Without a word.

Mama
There she stood in her burgundy hair blazing in the
sunshine
Fruit covered apron covering her white beach robe
“Dobraya Ootra” she says to me
Smiles
“Hi” I reply rubbing my sleep-worn eyes
Sitting down
Newly tanned skin contrasts sharply from her crisp
clean white robe
Smell of the beach, just minutes away, fills the room
My “mama” is bustling around the tiny kitchen
Of our house on the Cape trying to get breakfast and
lunch
Ready so we can go start the day at the beach

She is at ease at the beach
Enjoying the relaxing waves crash on the rocky sand
Seagulls chirping and children playing
Laying in the sand, her leopard print sunglasses
Cover her deep brown eyes and the warm rays of
The New England sun enveloping her

Here she is, my “mama” not an over worked
Woman I see for a few hours a day
She is my Mama and the Cape lets me be with her.

Mother
From the edge of the sky,
Yellow and pink rays peak in through the curtains,
That my mother picked out last month,
To match the pink rug and sheets of flowery bedspread.

A creak outside my door-
Similar to many other mornings,
Somebody taking gentle steps,
Gracefully, as if pressing any harder-
Would make the floor crack open and fall apart-

With her ears pressed against my door,
Listening to the heavy breathing-
As the clock counts every second’s beat-
Footsteps finally fade away.
I want to rise up to help her make breakfast for once-
But there’s no harm in sleeping for five more minutes.

Mama
Eight o’clock in the morning,
Her sixty-year-old rocking chair,
Set in front of the television,
TV Asia Indian News.

Four o’clock in the evening,
BBC World News.
“A heavy blizzard blankets much of the northeast in
the USA.”

The faded brown sari from her sister.
The green hand-stitched shawl from her eldest
daughter.
The new maroon slippers from her nephew.
Adorning them all, and sets out to the STD/ISD booth.

Hundreds of feet,
Unpaved, rock-strewn and dusty ‘roads’
Weaving through people, cars, and cows.
No rickshaw, save the money,
International call.

Calls New Jersey,
Bulli? BBC said there was a big snow storm,
Everyone is okay?

Everyone here is fine Mama,
I didn’t have school today.
Do you want to talk to Dad?

No it’s okay, I only have a little money,
And I need to call your cousin in Holland.

Dan
He got to go home first

We both wear different Nike T-shirts. His
a little tighter, sneakers half a size bigger.

Mom asks us about our day.
“Shitty,” he says, but that’s school. I agree,
adding my Spanish teacher’s an ass.
“Joseph!” she says, “watch your language.”

Mom lets us walk down to our friend’s house.
She watches from the front porch,
turns around for a split second.
He pushes me, runs ahead. I try to catch up.
Instead, I throw a snowball at the back of his head.
“Joe!” She scolds.

We go to our basketball game.
I don’t have that many turnovers.
I score more than him. Dad says he played a
great game, with almost no turnovers.
I interrupt: I played a good game too.
“Don’t be defensive.” he says.

I get in the shower. Just Jo.
Not Dan and Joe. Not DanJoe. Not the Twins.

Just me.

Grandma
Fragile, crinkled fingers
Patiently pressed pieces
Of soft semolina dough
Through tiny holes,
Giving birth to dozens of
Perfect fettuccine noodles-
Your favorite.

The all too familiar aroma of tomatoes
(Diced, crushed, and whole)
Would settle throughout the house.
Shuffling from
Ingredient to ingredient-
Cream of Sherry, sautéed garlic-
Adding the precise amount of each
According to that secret cookbook
Kept inside your head.

And after a day full of
Boiling, simmering and sautéing,
A plateful of pride
And a family you love
Could leave you with
Nothing but a smile.

reciting prayers
memorized long ago

sitting perfectly still
in traditional cotton salwar kurta

praying to g-ds
as the sun rises and falls

before returning
to cleaning the rooms
with the maids
that Nana pays

Grandpa
After three quarters of a century,
He still comes home from work
And paces to his old brown recliner,
In front of the dusty old television,
Newspaper in hand.

If you come to meet him in his den,
He’ll stop what he is doing,
And lower his glasses
To the tip of his nose.
“What’s the good word?”
(It’s always “Thunderbird”)
He interests you with stories
Of times past and present,
Or tell you about one of the many books
He has read.

After a “See ya when I see ya”,
He’ll dream of being on the links
And of his family.
Those loving faces in frames on the opposite wall
Catch his eye as he dozes off.

Grandfather’s “A Monkey”
Entranced by the monkey kind,
Of him they inquired.

Not born of a rock
Yet before Rooster,
Curiosity collected
Life’s necessary knowledge
Reading not a book formally
Under schoolmaster’s scrutiny.
Clever as Monkey was
Was he as well.

Many he could fool
In mischievous goodness
With which monkey made
A monkey out of a king,
And a king out of a monkey,
Stealing the kind’s thousand-year peach
From under his very nose.

Yet many he did help,
Being so inventive,
Perceptive and keen,
Deserving peasant,
Robbed by rich
Or adversity
Through Monkey’s means
Could get by another day.

Yet, where Monkey was caught
After making a mockery of the king,
He remained free,
For while he was like Monkey,
He knew to keep his hands
In his pockets.

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