Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

In the Country of My Bones

In the Country of My Bones There, where my eyes' horizon ends, Rises the country of my bones. Thoroughly kneaded with ten fingers, Flown through in a metro, And snagged near a white cherry tree. Good morning! It's a sunny Monday, It's a Tuesday with windy rain (What a miracle, that people's feet Can stroll through so many days and ways). A cottage struggles against gray poverty Like a hearty plant against drought. The doors cut open the day with a rattle, The cat awakens, and the hens, and the goose. A hope awakens that cucumbers in the garden will turn green, And a hen will lay an tgg. My mother—a clever general—ordered That no one should want any plum-tsimes125 and tea. No, no! Who needs it?— Cucumbers turn green, the world is bright. My feet tremble toward distant, sunny races, But now a familiar command arrives: —Look, the goose! Where has she waddled? Maybe into Khaim Gedalye's lettuce-patch. The blue ribbon in my braid trembles And the sunniness fades with the swaying flutter. The waves saw away at one another, the waves Of all the seas that I have floated through. And it seems to me: I have seen people and cities Through a crooked and fluid mirror. I hoisted my silk shirt to flutter as a flag,126 333 psTOynpx pynx vfryn iyi px px ,ain-^ya lyay^x p^ayi ix-ia f x pa ruy» ytttnyiw " H OTHS jya D*?yt?w TB IS pK •PHS3 K pyaisaD x miyn oy iT K Dpyi px K TT t:xn oy K pK p^ayicix poayn p ^ D^royi ^yji px ps D^pnyosrS px f^a x m f sn; nyanysip "poayn p-^ t?^ ^oyt - ,yaxna x ^ n px p^^nxs -px axn onyn ypny^s »^ yrn p-H oxn wroix px ,Dmx§ px nya^S px D^ynsy^ nyir DID x ^ I X DID x t^ ^DXtt jya Dxn 71 D^yiS ^yVamy^ ^y^ya^w DXT px :p!T1 T^D mXT pX — ]DS^ H pa ps yowi VH p^Hn px p -^a ps unb px ]myo H •]DSn«7 yr-^ px W 334 And went off into the world in a shirt of hard labor, I seem always to be in debt to everyone, And the worst complaints are always directed at me. This is clear. The clearest of all. About this, the Yankee would say: Okay.127 The Litvak says: It's no damn good.128 Strange how the sun is naked, and thinking is naked. A cloudiness hangs in me And obscures a soft summer's day. A cottage met up with the Empire State Building And they bent together into a question-mark: The Empire State Building openly, impudently Pointed with its highest tower And wrote as brilliantly and unexpectedly As lightning in the darkness of a storm: —See, with my highest copper tip I've cut a harrow in the sky, And your grandfather, for naught, with trembling hands Blessed the new moon! —See, at my most delicate cornice, With fingers formed in fever and dread, Sits, placing one leg upon the other New York's greatest bastard? And the cottage, as usual, asks how you are, And calmly says to me: —There's none of the bee's venom in honey— I correct those mistakes in the country of my bones And record them in my writings. 335 -'n K •Djrxs ijro^n x ijttgBttjtt rx pxtw pips Di$n:nn *px iyT^x ]x px ^ r n ijn nyiax |x t?^ or'x pxn i DKH 7T BDXIBIXS BXH pix^-n •t?yxs nyo^n x ^x )x ]ix ^ n njn o:rx |nxn -n B^ayicix t?xn oyrnxn nyi O ,nyrKnpiK /lyar^B^K ,?SIKIW XT nxn p^x yx xnxn jnxn T^X; D p^o x •3xp i^x sx^p x ps pn$Bttjn rx nysiKiw x •Bp^iznjn ^xpxo pT BXH ny^^xipix ix i^sy^ax pxn ^ y w x px iv x 336 ...