I am trying to reconcile
what I know
with what I feel. Roots,
drying in the open air. I am trying
to forgive my mother’s father’s homeland,
that lush paysage, pale of settlement, where
pogroms lit up the sky, while my grandfather,
in a shtetl not far from Kiev,
tried to be
an internationalist and stand
with Revolution. I am trying
to understand, so I might
stand there, too. Forgive
the land? The people on it?
Solidarity forever. Starting now.
Am I trying to forget
that landscape?
Some sunflower, searching
the horizon before us.
—
Norma Smith was born in Detroit, grew up in Fresno, California, and lives in Oakland. Her writing has been published in literary, political, and scholarly journals. Her book, HOME REMEDY was published by Nomadic Press (2017).
Image by Margarita Murushevska.
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