Poetry

Ruth Samuel-Tenenholtz Israel

Ruth Samuel Tenenholtz was an infant and hidden in Holland during the war. She lives in Haifa and writes Hebrew, English and Dutch poetry.

Bela Pagrach Betsie Samuel
My names in the first generation
were given to you
blood ties us
and ash like an umbrella in spring
something we might share
this is in the name You were thrown off the high bridge
Between child-being and woman-becoming
Hair forever loose
Curls never white
the bleeding marks on your arms
not caused by miracle
numbers in the tally
S and P in the Books of the DEAD
your memorial
And I I have your names
Bitter and heavy
I have tried naming myself with softness
And a different history
But the ash is stubborn and will not wash away this is in a name
When I add up my numbers
My life-span longer than
Your combined years
And I have crossed many bridges I
Am
Free
Of your shadows
Enlarging
Mother's sorrows
I
Am
Free
Of
your shadows
replica of
Father's anger

My years are without number

Looking Down

In my pyramid
no need for
the Rozetta Stone
A simple ten-digit code
plus one letter W:
for woman
The pit ---
a world of writhing sounds

Pandora's hope---
an echo in the factory of thin partitions

I have lost
my access code
among the gaming tables

All that I remember are
paper hieroglyphics
graphically displayed

the memory tears at
smooth flesh

Ruth Tenenholtz
June 16, 1998

EDUT

the memory has always been
like a tattoo
scratched on a child's arm in
adult symbols
a whispered blur
indelible as the ink
the lines of those who lived
whose flesh was ash
a finger pointed and a hand
clamped on a mouth
that hisses
she was experimented on
a husband loathed his wife well used
by grinning uniforms and boots
a wife no longer wife but
whore and she
my aunt I could not kiss

12 April 1991
yom hashoah

ART CLASS FOR ESTHER

in the frame of my mind
events are photographs
held by chipped gilding
loose hooks and rusty tacks
charades of momentary
glee and gloom

I am tired
stripped and sanded by
relentless carpenter time
late love now clamors
for a soap box
discarded dreams
due for replacement

when I step out in one slow motion
a choreographed pas de deux
it is an act of passion rather than an act of will

in the framework of all my lost days
you may hang my newly dried impressions
see the brighter palette
in comparison
encourage scenes unframed and damp

this is what I take home with me:
held by a rubber band
an unfinished sketch
rolled around the fading
frame of my time with you

Ruth Tenenholtz
January 1999

Beyond My Reach Till Now-- For Iona

In my eighteenth exile
The echoes of European memories
Remain bereft in the swallowed vowels
Living in New York 's neighborhoods
My words are flies caught in a
Sagging spider web of past and coming
A rush of wing-like sound and black photographs

Lips are time
Tongue a slow drawbridge and
Manhattan is an island out of reach for
My Dutch-hood language
Green plastic identity a tongue-tied-two-edged sword

That stabs both heart and my true words
Their numbers shorn and broken

Inside the remnant
A surge of scenes
Hand-me-down discarded memories
No starched and ironed shop-fresh stories

My grandmother's portrait which follows every
Move my young self made along the silent walls
Now looks down upon my matron days

We both are mothers
Woman bearing mother bearing child bearing
A sameness forged by blood and crouching

She smiles her first smile
I am a child standing on tiptoe
Learning to open the door

Ruth Tenenholtz
January 21, 1999

Man-Made Emptiness - for Esther

I have often told you
of the hurricane
that bears young children
off to distant lands and
wonderful adventure
but have you ever seen a child

    blown in
    and out
      of
orbit
?

The circles of the moon are made
of ancient ice
A treacherous track to follow
where small feet fling the center
upwards

And when you raise your eyes
Await the shooting lights
I say to you those visions
neither star
nor
falling meteor

But children flailing through the emptiness

Ruth Tenenholtz April, 1998

Responding to Marty

in my mother's arms
enfolded in the obligations
of goodchild invisibility
unless i stumbled over rules
and taboo places
in my father's arms
watching
the sky and faraway
from
where the gas still emanated
i did not learn of comfort
without price tags
and the dark
a husband later i was asked
while clinging to his chest
like a frightened infant
to a mother's breast
"hey are you finished yet?"
my children are free spirits
dusky cowboys in the saddle of
their cattle drives and days
i did not ask for comfort there
at times it's freely given
then i cry
with love

Ruth Tenenholtz
Haifa

Poetry

Volume 5, Fall 2004 Articles