{"id":59289,"date":"2024-02-10T11:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T16:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=59289"},"modified":"2024-02-10T23:39:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T04:39:58","slug":"posted-because-it-is-so-touching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2024\/02\/posted-because-it-is-so-touching.html","title":{"rendered":"<em>Because It Is So Touching<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">&#8220;A face long unloved will at some point grow ugly,<br>As unkissed features untended will as with an unkempt<br>Garden grow wild . . . &#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ON THIS SCARED AND SACRED DAY or, ERDOSES By David Erdos\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VColLPsMJYc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n<strong>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>For Tomas and Lilian<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A face long unloved will at some point grow ugly,<br>As unkissed features untended will as with an unkempt<br>Garden grow wild, as it is with my face and as it is<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With my garden, which under my mother\u2019s care<br>Was well tended back before when her life\u2019s strong argued case<br>Became filed. Sadly for me, this was closed twelve years<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, to the letter; while eighteen before her, and now<br>Three decades gone my Dad too, fell into an empty bath,<br>Heart attacked, his brown eyes exchanged for black glasses,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While my Mum, cancer coated and cosmos conveyed<br>Lost life\u2019s hue. She looked close to green when she died,<br>An alien primed in her passing both for stars and sensations<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That those lumbered by life can\u2019t describe.&nbsp; For it can be<br>A burden to build from first breath a common cause<br>That carves purpose; as life\u2019s loan accrues interest<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before being recalled by fate as God\u2019s jibe. And here is<br>The punchline for me and my two special people<br>Joined by one day, as if driven by a speeding death<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With no clutch. By 1994, they had been divorced<br>For ten years, in which my Dad had not said a word<br>To my mother. He had lived with three women,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In four different houses, step-fathered; indeed,<br>My Dad\u2019s decade away from my Mum had brought much<br>Before it too was all lost; from his own sacred mother,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To his job, house and last girlfriend, so when he travelled<br>To me he was the true walking wounded, and a brave one<br>At that, with no crutch. I had started acting by then,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as his work was ending. He had nowhere to go<br>But was hopeful that in Liverpool he\u2019d renew. And so<br>I found him a flat and a job to tide him over,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that starred sea was soon turning, as blots in the blue<br>Splatter sun. And the cold fronts confirm. Liverpool was<br>My father\u2019s third city. From Budapest under Stalin<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To Eden\u2019s London, snakes and ladders slid and were falling,<br>With each sting a stirring, while potentially set to stun.<br>And yet Tomas prospered and walked, learning both<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The language and London. My Grandmother, Uncle and Aunt<br>Quickly followed and their Holocaust loss was appeased.<br>They became suburban and rose around the garden gates<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of this country. Carefully pruned then in Kenton,<br>They became settled having first been the seized. My mum<br>Lived next door, and while her Dad\u2019s Bookie bred fate<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And fortune brought comfort, was tainted too by frustration,<br>As a lack of scope shaped her life. Girls like her had to work.<br>There was no little, or no aspiration. University was the province<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not of Zone 6. The Class knife may not have been sharpened<br>By then, but you could still feel it cut all around you.<br>A good girl got married. You were at best Secretary, and nothing<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At all if not wife. She was in Dickens and Jones at 15<br>And at 21, she nearly ran away with a Sailor. But this was soon<br>Stopped by her parents. He wasn\u2019t jewish, you see. Creed as strife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so the two met and in 1963 they were married. Six years<br>Passed together. It seems reasonably. And then I was born<br>And the trouble was seeded. With birth\u2019s primal focus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My parents\u2019 rebound fucked the free by showing love\u2019s bind<br>Lays in the mind of a marriage, whose thoughts can roam;<br>Being happy is conjecture at best, at worst dream,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so they sought other things, throughout a slow<br>Separation. It took them fourteen years to find freedom<br>And to fully understand what that means. They were<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Never really happy again, though each of course had<br>Their moments. As have I. Yet that island, which others<br>Gain and grace remains far and separated by sea<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I contemplate wasted water, on this day of all days<br>As I search and scribe for the star that may shine still<br>On them, and grant them renewal, in that golden garden<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where nothing is wild and each bloom has a beginning<br>Scored in, pulsating through pollen that bursts<br>For Black Hole bees and for beings who strive beyond box<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And room and live again somewhere else and as something<br>Else also. On the turn of the 10<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;my two people,<br>The authors of my heart were star joined. They could not see<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their life the prize and purpose between them.<br>Love does not need consummation and is not bought<br>By chance or by coin. It is perhaps that far force<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whose origin point remains open. Love can be darkness.<br>It is absence and Ark, loss and loin. For The dead become<br>Beautiful, as soon as memory seals them. &nbsp;The dead<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design for us the lasting look of all things. And so I grow<br>Uglier as each feature fattens, and am reaching an age<br>Where the movement between what I was and will be<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plays lute strings. And moves much faster each day.<br>We should not forget that Gravity was not made for apples.<br>It abounds for position and for the force of attraction<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Between object and earth, sun and me.<br>Gravity is ghost influence. It is appeal and need.<br>Its love lending, both you and I to the planet<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And to the proper place to feel free.<br>Which is wherever they are; as divorced in death<br>As in living, but as perhaps twinned lights shining,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Communication of sorts can resume. So today,<br>And unloved, I imagine an entirely different encounter.<br>And one that is rhymed and romantic, in which mistakes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are closed mirrors and accomplishments are sent signals.<br>I send one now with this poem. Mum and Dad,<br>Can you see me? On this scared and sacred day<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am dying to speak and sense you here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>See you soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<\/strong>\n<p><em>\u2014 <strong>David Erdos<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(The text of this poem is reposted from <a href=\"https:\/\/internationaltimes.it\/on-this-scared-and-sacred-day-or-erdoses\/\">IT: The International Magazine of Resistance<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A face long unloved will at some point grow ugly,<br \/>\nAs unkissed features untended will as with an unkempt<br \/>\nGarden grow wild . . . &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Erdos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-59289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-literature","8":"category-main","9":"category-news","10":"category-political-culture","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/David-Erdos-365.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fqh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59289"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59312,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59289\/revisions\/59312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}