Naomi Ruth Lowinsky
(USA)
This series of poems is written in response to
Emma Hoffman’s paintings.
I See You in the Foothills, Oma
Da ist keine Stelle die dich nicht sieht
There is no place that does not see you
Rilke
I wear you like a necklace with one lost stone
I feel you in my bones, in the slow dance of the vineyards
In the violet hills, how they meander, to the edge of sky—
In the bed and breakfast mirror your nose is my nose—
What brings you back now, with your cranky stomach
Complaining all night of too rich food?
I am with my husband—he manages maps
Schedules, reservations, while you carry on—
In English, in German—about shades
Of mauve, of purple, of green
He has taken me away for my birthday. I’m as old as you were
When I was the age of my grandson. He’s 10.
And I suddenly need to know—what became of your spirit—
When your husband who managed visas, investments
Who got most of the family out of Europe
Dropped dead one afternoon, the smell from the ovens
Fresh in his nose, and me just born? You were so new
To this far west—so far from all you knew—
With 25 years still to go—vineyards to paint
And mountains and me. How is it I never asked?
Your daughter, my mother, can no longer find her way
From yesterday to tomorrow. Who will complete the story?
I wear you like a necklace with one lost stone
There is no place on earth where you don’t see me
No place where I don’t feel you in my bones…
Portrait of the Girl I Was, Age 14
Although I don’t enjoy
Looking at you—a clogged life
In a white dress, holding red flowers—
(Oma must have thrust
Those blood blooms
Into your haunted hands)
Although you sit there—deer eyed
Ready to bolt—Cossacks will gallop through
Nazis will kick in the door—
Although the music’s
gone underground, and you’ve lost
That wild horse you used to ride
Although you’ll dream
Of spitting broken teeth
Into the road for years
Before you learn
The sanctity
Of your own red room
Although I’ve never noticed
This before—behind your back
In a far corner
Of canvas—there is an open
Window, a hint
Of radiance, a glimpse
Of green trees—
You can’t see it yet, but
Oma has painted
Your way out…
Limbo
Cuba, 1940
I’m here
Footstep and breath
Real as the trees
Real as the archway they make
From shadow to glow
Real as my painting in oil
For your eyes
Trees are my rock and my roots
Trees are my silent angels
Will the ghosts ever find me?
Will they build their nests in these branches
Here
As they did in Europe?
We are refugees from that room
With its single bare light bulb
Will our visas ever be granted?
Will our dead know where we’ve gone?
I’m here
Heartbeat and belly
Real as the woman I paint
Passing through shade into glow
Hungry for sun and the sea
And for you yet to be
I’m here
Belly and breath
Trees are my rock and my temple
Trees are my vigilant angels
And you soon to be
Will you make your nest here?
When Trees Go Wild
1938
They wander no man’s land
With suspicious passports
They clothe themselves in ghost fire
Orange flames green flames
They forget they belong to the ground
They deny the skies
They leap into waters where war lurks
With crocodile teeth
If we ran we would lose our roots
If we stayed we’d be chopped
Into kindling
For the mad man’s fire
If our spirits could rise and perch
In the canopy like jungle birds
Like souls of a different persuasion
Yoruba let’s say
We might dance ourselves into trance
But be lost to our dead
Forgotten by stones
By bodies of water
When trees go wild
They burn orange and green in water
They dive in the dark where war lurks
With crocodile teeth
Brown on Brown
Schreveningen, Holland, 1934
Brown is the color of ache
Brown and a touch of orange
Renders my Low Country brooding
In water color
Everything hangs in the air
Land water dikes
Somebody’s drifting house
My dead my dread
Brown is the mother of longing
Brown is the mother of blood and its stains
Brown is this sepia daydream
This monochromatic mood
I sit by my window reflecting
On brown and its shades of pale
Watercolor won’t hold back the tide
Nor will the dikes
Only brown
And the slenderest brush I can find
Only my wistful
Sky reaching strokes
Say trees
Say roots
Say someday
Maybe leaves
Ghost Brother’s Complaint
Kassel, Germany 1930
Unseen in the wet morning grass
Unheard in the linden trees
Not smelt by the dog
Not hailed by the raucous parrot
Nor felt on the curve of your cheek
Little sister
Though I glower and glare
In the studio air
Our mother pays me no mind
Nor the holy flares of the sun
She’s dragged you in here
To be painted
She’s fixated on your living flesh
Your blue blouse
How your eyes go dark and inward
To the place where I am not
Your laughter
Your running footsteps
Have not been heard in this house
Since the day I never came back
From the snows. I know—
I was your galloping joy ride
Your hide and go seek in the garden
Who’d toss you on high
To the sky—
Then why
Does our mother
Who knows there are other realms
Refuse to know me
Though I dance in the breeze
Though I glitter and soar
Though I rattle the windows
And brush the hairs
On your arms
There is no way out of sorrow
Or the shadow that falls
On your face—
Much worse is yet to come—
But you’ll hold still, little sister
In the brush strokes
Of our mother—
While the life you live
Does a circle dance
Until one day your daughter—
Now a grandmother—
Pulls your sad young face
Out of the closet
And gives me
Voice…
Only the Snow Knows
Kassel, Germany 1931
There are no more tears
Only the broken trees
Only the neighbor’s house in horror
At its cold dead load
Only the snow knows
Where they’ve gone
Into what black mouth
Everything is agitated
Agitated windows
Agitated walkways
Agitated brush strokes
Spirit leaks into earth
Only the snow knows
Where they’ve gone
My sons in the land beyond sun
Everything is torn
Limbs from trees
Heart from house
An agony of oil paint
Gouges the sky
Only the snow knows
The treachery of mountains
There are no more tears
A Grandmother’s Self Portrait Speaks
Flesh is my home.
Flesh, brief as it is, my consolation
I could have painted blue horses, gone galloping off
Into the unseen. I could have rendered the wings
Of violins or dazzled your eyes with blazes of geometry
Even my own Corinth, who taught me to follow the light
Went wandering off into inner life
breaking it off with Rembrandt, Franz Hals, Courbet
He told me my work was
Overly domesticated. Why not?
Given that I was to lose
A daughter, two sons, a home, a country …
Flesh is my sanctuary
And my communion with you—
generations after the paint has dried—
you pull me out of the closet
you need to see me again—
to mirror my fierce focus
the unbearable set of my mouth
the North Sea light as it falls on my face
the loosening skin of my neck
What aspect of you do you seek in my eyes?
Notice my palette is dark
I use light and shadow
To define my decline
Behind me divided worlds—the hard edge
of studio wall, and the glow
from the unknown side—that blue green whimsy
where breeze stirs the curtains
where your eyes go…
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Naomi Ruth Lowinsky has written poems since she was a girl. She was inspired to follow her muse by her grandmother, Emma Hoffman, who was a fine painter. As a child she watched her grandmother, whom she called “Oma,” paint landscapes, portraits, still lifes. She listened to her stories about all she had lost¾ three of her six children, her country and her way of life. She was a German Jew who fled from the Nazis with her family¾first to Holland, then Cuba, and eventually to America.
Oma still haunts Naomi Ruth Lowinsky’s poems. This series of poems is written in response to Emma Hoffman’s paintings.
Lowinsky’s poems have been published in many anthologies and literary magazines. Her most recent book of poems is called “adagio & lamentation.” She is also the author of a memoir about her creative life, “The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way.” She is the winner of the Obama Millennium Award for poetry. She is a Jungian analyst, and poetry editor for Psychological Perspectives, the journal of the Los Angeles Jung Institute.
She blogs at www.sisterfrombelow.com