Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

At the Mirror

At the Mirror I stand at the mirror in constant prayer, Dear God, let my hair remain And let someone stroke it again. At my mirror, a miracle occurs. I stand here like a white lilac twig, And I recognize my childhood shoes And the whiteness of my dress, But I don't recognize my childhood bliss. 243 II ,1x0 ]wi ,»n pK D ^ ,TI vi TK ^ttfjn DXT |Kp •'n o^s yojnnxi D^O ]IK ^TK ,tra ^Ts lynyi rx x s y^njnrp ^ix ^ ,0*19 09W ps D^pmi H IIKH OKII ^e DIS nyaeiyi ^nn pn T7 ^n T K ,] n K-^ITK pjrn |jra V K T 244 II God, I stole cherries from the neighbors' orchard with girlish glee, And wept with my face in the hay Afterwards for two or three days. How can it be, that with you, sun-ripe and mature, One becomes now so overly civil, impure?74 And it was so good, so sweet With bare feet To gather forest mushrooms or needles of evergreen, Like a tiny colleen,75 And to hear in the reeds How a frog talks with God. To keep still and to sprawl, And to count branches on fingers so small. Even now I cannot recognize My very own face in the mirror, Those eyes in there are not my eyes That sucked the green from the summer When I ran through the gardens down to the brook for a swim, And got a lashing with rods for trampling beds, doing harm. How can it be, that with you, sun-ripe and mature, One becomes now so overly civil, impure? 245 *pp x ]jn 2w pa rx ,*p& x }jn ai&tt pa rx pa px mow i^x nyr^p ^DXD px TX mDw pa rx px o^Din px oy rx XJ ^a rx f ixn pa ]ix rx |x nxa 1929 246 ...