Like everybody else, I wasn’t a Jew
Until I came to New York. In Portland, OR,
The other day, a young Latina asked me
If I were Jewyorican. Papa and Bubby
Came from Ukraine, landed in Brooklyn,
Settled in Harlan, KY, and named my father
Benjamin Franklin. My mother, the offspring
Of a coalminer, married Ben, the only Jew
In town. He didn’t last. Ma remarried.
In kindergarten, in Cincinnati, instead
Of moving to the afternoon session the second

Semester, I stayed in Morning and changed my name.
This is the year 5760. In Chinese it is Year
Of the Dog. I just learned that the time between
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day
Of Atonement)are the Days of Awe. Moody and gray,
With dashes of absolute clarity, I love these days.
Cleansing summer’s sweat from the streets of New York,
I always think of the Year beginning in September.
“That’s when school starts.” A holdover from Youth.
This year, 1999, for the first time I thought,
Hey, it’s the real New Year, and I am a real Jew.
A real Jew, a real coalminer’s son, a poet, too

A field green blue field
My father’s blue wide white eyes
He is breathing through his eyes of death
A mountain over his heart just stays there
A tiny gray field, my father’s tiny head
Our slow car crosses a bridge
Children at play dash
To the sides of the bridge
“Someday you will play like that Robert”
I will play like them in the field of death
Fences cut the wheat
The sun fades wet into the dark
I cross the bridge alone as it dissolves
Thunder pulls my heart into my father’s eyes
Blue and wide and inside skin
Mother mother where have you been
I’ve been out back to Pineville town
I’ve walked the mountain all around
Robert, you will play like them
In the fields of men and women

© 2000, Bob Holman

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