By Eileen Wingard
LA JOLLA, California –This season’s final evening of Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices, May 6th, in the Astor Judaica Library, JCC, featured three outstanding poets from the San Diego County Jewish Community.
Lee Ben-Yehuda read from her book, The Dreaming (2013). A former elementary teacher, she is a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselor and a Certified Sandplay Therapist.
Myla Lichtman-Fields, noted playwright, actress and vocal artist, demonstrated her many talents as she read poems from her plays and sang several original songs, accompanying herself on guitar.
Steven Schorr read from his two books, Night Songs at Dawn (1992) and The Idiom of Dreams (2013) . An attorney-at-law, he conducts a busy law practice.
Following are two examples from each poet, works heard during the evening.
Queen of the Kitchen (excerpt)
By Lee Ben-Yehuda
I spend hours on a stool in the kitchen
watching the backs of my mother’s hands.
The little finger on her left hand has a permanent
crook from some long forgotten break.
It doesn’t slow her down. A narrow rolling pin
flattens strudel dough. When thin enough,
her knuckles under it, she stretches it further,
across a floured table cloth.
Sliced apples piled evenly near the edge,
sugar and cinnamon spread on top,
raisins layered last with a squeeze of lemon juice,
bread crumbs over the rest.
Carefully she starts rolling the tissue paper dough
over the golden apples.
Then onto the oiled cookie sheet,
a fat snake coiled lightly at one end,
patted on top with oil and a light
sprinkle of sparkling white sugar.
The warmth of the oven,
sweet odors floating in the air—
I smell them and my taste buds salivate.
Tillie, my Hungarian Jewish mother,
henna hair short and waved, hazel eyes
focused and certain, moves with rapid ease,
takes the strudels from the oven,
A smile on her face as she sees
their perfectly browned flakiness.
“We’ll cut slices as soon as it cools.”
*
Ars Poetica — Why I Write
By Lee Ben-Yehudah
I write to capture those “slipping glimpses,”
how Willem de Kooning described his paintings.
I write looking for wisdom from the Crone who sits by me
I write to allow my Shirley Temple girl to find her place.
I write to stir memories around in the vegetable soup
of my mind.
I write when I hear songs inside my head.
I write to contact that mysterious place where images
are born.
I write when the harvest moon beguiles me.
I write wondering how I can describe the indescribable
sunset
I saw this evening.
I write because the nudge
inside says, “express me.”
I write poetry to simplify and create inner order.
I write to wade through a lifetime’s clutter and find
the pearls.
I write to allow my whimsical self to exist.
I write because it pleases me.
Wedding Hymn
By Myla Lichtman-Fields
Sing a song unto the hills,
The hills of Smokey gray,
Sing a song unto the Lord,
The circle’s complete today.
Honey bee begets honey,
And mountain bear begets cubs.
And man and woman shall be one as flowers
Pollinating the Lord’s fine world
With love.
Bless this night,
And bless this day,
Throughout time man and woman shall come this way.
*
We Are the Stones in the Western Wall (song lyrics)
By Myla Lichtman-Fields
We are the stones in the Western wall
We’ve held man’s prayers
We’ve felt them all.
We are the stones in the Western wall.
Yes, we have endured throughout time.
I am on the bottom where children come
They touch my face, they feel my moss,
And though they are young they seem to known
That I have survived throughout time.
A blind man touched my face so smooth
I felt his tears, I heard his prayers
He walked all across Europe to come
He wished for a life free from fear.
She was sixteen and all alone
The girl from Auschwitz who touched our stones
She prayed that she would find a home
Here in the promised land
A rabbi kneeled by my side
He said a prayer, he sang a song
He prayed that peace would finally come
Here to this wall of hope
*
To My Boy At Ten, Almost Eleven
By Steven Schorr
once, with dawn’s twittering
chorus of larks, or dusk’s
evaporation of the day, i
clutched you close and felt
the whispering tips
of tiny tendrils
brushing
the nook near
my neck, curling
to shoulder, i sang to you my rock-
n-roll lull-
abies, what-
ever, came
to mind, the oldies, classics
of my youth, to soothe
your pain?
your path…?
your youth…? (all I knew but could never
know,
The days went by, the years…)
O happy child, what could I glean
from your sweet eyes
and keep to light
my wintry
cave
you kept me younger than my years and put upon my lips
the seal of heaven
And now, each morning’s chirping thrush,
and every evening’s silent lilt,
Sweet rhapsodies of memory,
tender ache of time gone by
*
Idioms of a Dream
by Steven Schorr
Not a day passes that I don’t think about it. I wonder if it could have worked out differently, and I know I need not wonder. That I have always known the answer, and forgotten it, too.
Just remember; it never, never comes this easily. Keep that in mind.
Each day that passes, and I move further from those days. The memories mingle with magic, mourning and myth. And I look at myself again in the mirror, wondering I was ever there, and where I went when it all became too much to see.
Sitting by the great sea now, night after night, as I dreamt it in those evenings, many evenings, long ago now.
How I traveled, in those days.
Was it just a wish?
Without knowing, I
wonder now.
How I have slipped into an innocence of lies,
left to figure out
the impossible.
*
Wingard is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted at eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com