an old writer and his words

  • HOLOCAUST

    Years later on, having walked calmly away from my former faith, I am left still pondering where you find the words to describe, to teach the unspeakable, and how you use them to reach children who have no right to know the unspeakable, but who must, lest they later speak it. It was a generation…

    Lou Faber

  • AGING

    She would have been, what … does it matter anymore, frozen in time at that last age before time ceased to matter and images became locked and only the viewer grew older but glad at least for that. The only thing worse than getting older is not she once said, then as was her fashion,…

    Lou Faber

  • AT THE MARGINS

    Horizons are the thing we have they greatest trouble with. They are omnipresent, immutable and yet move at our approach. They are at once inviting and fear inducing, though now we are largely convinced they do not mark the edge of a precipice over which we would catapult into some endless abyss crossing their margin.…

    Lou Faber

  • ANOTHER GHETTO

    She sits in the bookstore cafe her head covered by a linen kerchief bobby pinned to the mass of walnut curls. She cradles the cup of cooling coffee and stares down at the slim book of Amichai, yielding to the Hebrew letters that seem to dance across the page. I sit at the adjoining table…

    Lou Faber

  • ARCHER

    The work of the bow is done when the arrow takes flight, when the vibration of its string is recurved into stillness. But what of the archer now having let go, can only await the fletched arrival. If the target falls will the bow know the pain, will the archer, will the fingers hold the…

    Lou Faber

  • THE WATCHER

    He stands transfixed on the bridge, arms outstretched, staring at the river always flowing slowly by below. He wears a garland of gold, an inscription in Hebrew, the holiest of holies, mocking those who hold him a man. Did he peer out of the corner of his eyes as they marched them across the bridge…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS HOW WE MOURN

    This is how we mourn: we don’t berate the clouds for gathering, nor begrudge the rain’s ultimate descent. Our tears fall to the earth as well, and there are moments when we need the gray, moments when the sun would be an unwelcomed interloper. This is how we mourn: we wipe the walls clean of…

    Lou Faber

  • TAI YRA MANO MOTINA (THIS IS MY MOTHER)

    It’s odd how your stature has grown as I dream of you occasionally staring at your yearbook picture. It was only four years ago that I knew you existed, but hadn’t the faintest idea of who you were, anything about your life, why you gave me up, and, therefore who it was I might have…

    Lou Faber

  • LEGACY

    We often believe that the best way to honor the dead is to praise them. When my time is gone, do not praise me for your praise will fall on deadened ears. If you believe in the power of the word speak aloud in my name, if you dare, commit the deed as you believe…

    Lou Faber

  • PRACTICE (TANKA)

    In the Buddha Hall autumn daylight filters through the half closed windows. In the garden, Kannon stoops to pick up a fallen leaf.

    Lou Faber