I remember

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I remember

By Sofie Kreidstein

I remember seeds

yet to sprout

just waiting

waiting

waiting for a rainy day

their blossoming

cut short

left to fertilize

the ground on which they lay

tripping over gnarled roots

ancestral scars

entangled by adaptation and survival

I ask my bubbie what memory remains

beyond our blood and their bones

that lie beneath pebble covered graves

she responds:

why would I think about the old world

when there’s so much shit to deal with in the new we laughed

she cried

then silence

I remember fragments

of their twisted mother tongues

sung softly

to the tune of klezmer lullabies

I remember

I hold

I live

in spite of all the pain

that came before me

that remains

and is to come

that ancient wound

infinitely deep and ever healing

picked open again and again

I remember

in all of its guilt

carried on that peculiar wind

that came with their shadows  

in the woods

I remember their faces

as I watch myself age in the mirror

and their voices through kindred

subtleties the shape of my lips

intonations I mirrored

in the echoes I hear

moments before I sleep

I remember their bodies when I lose my own

and remember their touch when I return

I remember

not in facts but in my body

in my unconscious knowing

and unspoken feeling

in the dance of my DNA

a ladder I wrestle my angels upon

I remember but sometimes I need to be reminded

I remember in the mere fact that I exist I

remember what makes that a miracle I remember

even at times when I yearn to forget

I remember

when I can

all the joy of remembering

I remember until I become memories

I remember

איך געדענק

I remember