Seattle 109, or Raizl/Rachel Poems

As I've been moving through my 365/365 poem-a-day project, little arcs have crept into my writing. One of them is a character study of a woman named Raizl, or Rachel (depending on when in her life I'm writing about.) It started spontaneously - she just appeared a poem one day, when I was working on a difficult prompt. I liked her so much, I wrote about her the next day, and the next. Now, I never dread my "poem time," because if I have nothing pressing to write about, I get to visit her, think about her, do a little digging - and eventually share a piece of her. I've written over a dozen of these poems. Here are a few I'd like to share.

Rachel, Westchester, NY, 1963

She walks to the elementary school

to pick up the girls. Only Rebecca

is old enough to understand

the reason for the unexpected holiday.

The teachers cry.

The children stare out the windows.

At home, Rachel makes sandwiches.

She and Rebecca listen to the radi

while the twins play.

When Fannie begs to go outside,

Rachel cradles the little girl's head

against her side.

"Not today, mamaleh.

The world is just a little

too upside down."

That night,

Rachel's husband

falls asleep

holding her hand.

After he has begun to snore,

she slips from their bed,

and tiptoes to the kitchen.

They are still there:

four suitcases

behind the potatoes

and flour.

They contain canteens and cigarettes,

and space for clothing.

She has sewn a roll of bills

into each lining.

Rachel sits on the kitchen floor,

hugging her knees.

The insomnia will last

until the world rights itself.

This much, she knows.

Raizl, Föhrenwald, Bavaria, Germany, 1945

In her second week,

someone finds a slate,

and nails it to one of the last trees.

There is no chalk. Several soft stones

rest in the crooks of the roots.

The residents of the DP camp

call it "the lost and found."

It only contains names.

Raizl visits the tree once a day.

August becomes September

in a breeze.

She sleeps outside, wrapped

in a Red Cross blanket.

The stars are a comfort -

the ground softer than the barracks.

On the day she meets her future husband,

she wakes from a dream of black birds

and broken violin songs

to find him squatting beside her,

a tin cup drowning in his curled fingers.

She studies him as she drinks:

careful patches in his boots,

sponged collar of his uniform,

dark gray eyes. a few silver threads

in his muddy hair.

They spend the afternoon

teaching each other

the names of their hometowns.

Westchester. Lodz. New York. Poland.

He beams. He tells her

she would make

a beautiful American.

How they would swoon

under the charm of her tongue.

Rachel and Stella, next to the crib, 1988

Like so many mothers,

Rebecca named her daughter

in two languages: English and Jewish.

Stella and Shoshanna. Her mother

thinks Shoshanna is a mouthful

of a name for such a morsel,

but likes the way the names pair:

stars and lilies. She painted

an ocean dotted with tiny white flowers.

Rebecca put it in the nursery,

above the crib. She thinks it's a night sky.

Rachel rocks Stella for hours,

and smiles at the ceiling -

when they grow into the same language,

Rachel will whisper her secret name

into those perfect jughandle ears. Raizl. Raizl.

A name hidden in translation,

a lily among the stars.

Raizl, on her wedding day, 1952

The name on the piece of paper looks

like new breasts, or the puckered belly

after the baby - something

to practice recognizing as her own.

She has signed herself to both

this man, and his country,

this tongue. Rachel.

It seems to halt in the middle,

uncertain of its own proclamation.

In the dark,

he will call her Raizl again,

faster, until her name

sounds like hoofbeats,

like rain, like the wild, endless grass

of Poland.