Selma Benjamin
Stats
Pastime trenz pruca
Hometown seattle, washington
job photographer
interests landscape, portrait, travel
Poem Titles
> Shavu’ot today
> PAINTED CITY
> TRAVELING
Shavu'ot today
And my thoughts fly hack
To the synagogue laid waste
Can it be sixty years ago
The space that housed
My imaginary swing
In its grand vault of prayer
Prayer that seemed to rise
Higher and higher
Empowering my buoyant swings.
I see the red lamp
Eternal till snuffed
By the barbarians
I see the blue velvet curtain
With Jacob's ladder ascending
Swathed in gray clouds
Designed by Uncle Leo
Artist in the service of God.
I hear the voices rising
From the white turbulent sea
Of prayer shawls
The choir's harmony
The cantor's pleading
The rabbi's calming speech.
Brown seriousness
Of wooden ledges
That held the prayer books
Women's shapes
Veiled by the grille.
At Shavu'ot
Spring green and blossoms
Adorned
At Sukot
Tall palm branches
Paraded.
Simhat Torah
Merriment and dancing
Children with flags
Candy and apples
I, four years old
In my father's pew's
High wooden walls
Kissing the high-colored silk
And tinkling ornaments
Of the passing sefarim,
And singing.
Yamin Nora-im
The High Time
White everywhere
Men in their sargenes
Their death costumes
Standing room only
Every surface covered
In white cloth
Girls dressed in white
Jews kneeling at the holy 'avodah
Heartbreaking melodies.
My grandfather Marcus
Preached here
My father Abraham and his brothers
Played on the cobblestoned square
Near the ancient cemetery
We walked back and forth from home
Countless times
Waited for brothers, aunts
Fell in and out of love.
On this square
Named after a rebellious Jewish writer
Of the enlightenment
I have left a part of me
Long after they burned and smashed
The red sandstone house of prayer
The squat corner tower
With the green cupola
Long after they crushed
The faithful like flies
The square of Borne
Borneplat?
Lives in my heart.
________________________________
PAINTED CITY
They say we have no seasons in Los Angeles
But look at our trees!
Each month endows great leafy forms
With brilliant, drunken color.
July brings us yellow sprigs or globes on acacias
August surprises with crape myrtles' umbels of pure magenta
September comes, and the scarlet voluptuousness of flowering eucalyptus
Overwhelms.
October displays pink Australian trees shot with silver
And smaller silk floss, pink and fluffy
November and December cover northern maples
In flaming red, often waiting to contrast
With snow-white pear trees
in January.
February has pink almond and purple-white magnolia
Just as in the temperate zones
And young intense green mingles with blossoming fruit-trees
In March and April
But May and June are tropically celebrated
With blue clouds of Jacaranda.
A year-long feast!
________________________________
TRAVELING
In my teens
I had seen the Alps
Green rivers, blue gentian
Countless white mountain tops
I had been intoxicated
By the music of Parisian French
And because of Hitler
Left home for good
Saw and felt
The infinite expanse and grandiose dance
Of the Earth's great waters
That rocked me to London
That vast gray city.
In my twenties
A cleaning woman
In the green English countryside
I longed for the sea
Forbidden to me, the tolerated German refugee
I dreamt of Europe, the Continent
My vanished friends
There and in Palestine.
In my thirties
The world opened again
I traveled
Across the dark and stormy Atlantic
To brightest New York
Fewer warsMY RICHES
To live in Santa Monica, CA
Where most mornings
Sun paints golden patches and highlights
On walls and trees outside my windows.
Bending and stretching my limbs, torso and face
On my living-room floor
Guided by Mr. Hittelman’s quiet voice
Restoring equipoise, smoothing out pain.
To float on music and language sounds
Traversing time and space
Drinking in thoughts and stories
I would never have dreamed of alone.
Not to forget the miraculous telephone
Bringing me voices
Near and far, welcome and sometimes irritant
Letting me travel in the very present.
And my greatest treasure
Long long time companion
Full of artistic surprises
My marvel, to touch, go with, talk to, love.
More money
Cars, planes
Took me to mountains, brooks, rivers
Flowers of a thousand hues
Cities overflowing with history and poverty.
Now, after forty travel-full years
I'm happy to live through the seasons
Holding a vague idea of my planet
I walk the streets, tend the garden
Seeing a world in a flower's face
Or a decorated front door.
MY RICHES
To live in Santa Monica, CA
Where most mornings
Sun paints golden patches and highlights
On walls and trees outside my windows.
Bending and stretching my limbs, torso and face
On my living-room floor
Guided by Mr. Hittelman’s quiet voice
Restoring equipoise, smoothing out pain.
To float on music and language sounds
Traversing time and space
Drinking in thoughts and stories
I would never have dreamed of alone.
Not to forget the miraculous telephone
Bringing me voices
Near and far, welcome and sometimes irritant
Letting me travel in the very present.
And my greatest treasure
Long long time companion
Full of artistic surprises
My marvel, to touch, go with, talk to, love.
