an old writer and his words

  • ORIGIN

    I am told that I should writeabout my origins, that is the stuffthat long poems are made of, orrather the soil from which they bloom. I have written about my birth motherand visited her grave in West Virginiaseen those of my grandparents, meta cousin, I’ve written all of that. So its time to write aboutmy…

    Lou Faber

  • TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

    I am there, a classroom,elementary or middle school,Charleston, West Virginia1930’s, girls in proper skirts,saddle shoes, the old womanat the front of the room,first day of a new year. “Jones”, a hand goes up,“Murphy”, another rises slowly,“Padlibsky, what kindof name is that, Jew, orsome kind or Ruskie maybe?”A small voice answersLithuanian, ma’am. A scene that neverhappened,…

    Lou Faber

  • A PERFECT STILLNESS

    You lie there, perfectly still,the morning breeze slides awayleaving the sun to stare down,and the birds fall into silence.  I gently touch the stone, feelyour cheek beneath my finger,see your face, the college yearbookphoto all that I have of you.  I speak silently to you, tellingof my sixty-seven years, of yourgrandsons and great grandchildrenand I…

    Lou Faber

  • FINDING PEACE

    It wasn’t lost on me, mother, that this yearon the anniversary of death, you had been goneeighteen years, Chai in your beloved Hebrew,a lifetime for me, having never met yousave in the half of my genes you implantedin me when I was implanted in you. As you aged, alone, did you wonder whatbecame of the…

    Lou Faber

  • TREPIDATION

    I approach it slowly, overcomeby fear and desire, warned to stepcarefully over the uneven earththat on this hillside haven set behindthe rusting wrought iron fence , itsmaster lock dangling askew, peersout through the trees to the Kanawha riverflowing unknowingly through the valley. The stone is set in line with the others,neatly incised, a name, Englishand…

    Lou Faber

  • NAME IT

    Aunt Tzipporah hated her name,detested it really, came closer to the truth.“What the hell were my parents thinking?”she said, “like being Jewish in West Virginiaisn’t going to be hard enough.On a good day I got away with being Zippy,but you try spending your Junior year in high schoolhearing “Hey Zipper” or having some jerkcome up…

    Lou Faber

  • MITOCHONDRIAL

    I always imagined it would somehowbe romantic, not in the Hollywood sort of way,but in an idyllic, picturesque manner,even if that denied basic reality.Reality, when it comes to origins discoveredis overrated, for the normal percolation timeis denied, and the impact is suddenwith no restraints to temper the blow.Way back when, you learned by storiestold by…

    Lou Faber

  • STATELESS

    I suppose it is oddly fitting that I was born in the continental U.S. but can claim no state as home. I was a Federal child, and that meant nothing at all to me, a child who left town at two after a father’s death, a sister reclaimed by the government, which was no State,…

    Lou Faber

  • FINDING

    Even when I was briefly in Edinburgh I dreamed of walking the streets of Lisbon or Porto looking into the faces of older men and wondering if this one was my father. the father I had never seen, never known. Was the one my Jewish mother described in detail to the social worker who took…

    Lou Faber

  • THE VISIT

    I have never visited the grave of my mother, either of them, which seems most odd primarily to me. The mother I never knew until it was too late to know her is buried in Charleston, West Virginia a place i intend to visit, grave site included in the coming months, to see where my…

    Lou Faber