The Best American Poetry

Violoncello [Dovid Hofshteyn - Trans. by Lera Auerbach]

Dovid Hofshteyn (1889-1952) left Russia during the years of war and revolution and was a pioneer of modernist literature in Yiddish after the First World War. He returned to the USSR in the mid-1920s and became involved in Soviet cultural activities in Yiddish. Like other Yiddish writers, Hofshteyn participated in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In 1948, as part of the process of eliminating Yiddish culture in the USSR, he was arrested and tried alongside other Jewish authors. On August 12, 1952, he was executed by the Soviet government in what has come to be known as the Night of the Murdered Poets.

 

Violoncello

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Un s’tsitern di vent,
di zayln fun mayn zayn,
un hekher, hekher shtaygt 
di shtil fun ere dayner,
un nider vert bagrobt
mit shtoyb fun dayne fis.

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Vos bodstu zikh in shtoyb,
vos vashstu zikh in ash,
vi foyglen in a hits,
vos hobm furkht far vaser 
un kiln zikh mit erd un frishn zikh in mist?..

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif,
vi zod fun frishn blut
af shtumen roytn shteyn,
vi zod, vos vert nit shtil
fun umshuld zoyber-reynem,
biz gloybik heyses blut
mit tsiter im bagist.

 

Nu, boyg zhe zikh, mayn zel,
nu, brum zhe brustik tif,
un ver fun ashn klor,
fun blutn ver shoyn reyn,
un ver fun tsiter mild,
ver loyter shoyn fun veynen,
un zol tsu likht dir zayn
dayn groyser brokh, dayn ris!

 

 

Violoncello

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
The walls of my core are trembling.
Higher, still higher, soars
your quiet honour.
Then, falling, it buries itself
under the dust of your feet.

 

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
Why do you bathe in the dust,
and wash yourself in the ashes?
So are birds in the smouldering heat,
thirsty for water – can cool
themselves in the earth,
and get refreshed in the sand.

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
from the depth of my chest,
boiling like fresh blood
spilt on the mute stones?
The boiling will not subside
from its pure innocence,
nor from its hot devotion –
it is trembling, spilling over.

Oh, bend to me, my soul,
sing heartfully within my depth,
cleansed by ashes
purified by blood,
your strings tremble gentler,
enlightened by the sobbing …
Let the grief and sorrow
illuminate the way!

 

— “Violoncello” by Dovid Hofshteyn (Translation by Lera Auerbach)

The Еgg-matryoshka of Death [by Lera Auerbach]

Untitled - Japanese Ink on Handmade Paper [by Lera Auerbach]

1. Forever Present

Is there one more death within death?
And then one more death inside of that one?
And so on, so on, so on, infinitely dividing and dying again and again within each new division? The egg-matryoshka of death – the deeper we look, the smaller it becomes, indefinitely so. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Our time extends in both directions until nothing is left except the present everlasting moment.

 

2. Forgotten Memories

What happens to all forgotten memories?
Memories that are forgotten more than once?
Memories that lost their bodies of words and images?
What would happen if words lost their meanings and definitions?

My father is drawing the map of the dead.

 

3. The Kingdom of the Dead

The Kingdom of the Dead is far greater than the Kingdom of the Living. It is not surprising – all who are living, sooner or later join the Kingdom of the Dead, and as far as we know, the opposite doesn’t happen. If reincarnation exists, it still requires a new body, and the new body will sooner or later die – one can’t argue about that.

The dead are everywhere – we breathe them in with the air.

My father marks the graves of our deceased relatives on his hand-drawn map of the cemetery. I am supposed to find them one day. I wonder if I ever will.

 

4. Falling

The words fall from the sky like leaves from a tree.
Do fishes go to school?
I count visible stars – there are more of them than my fingers and toes combined, so I stop counting.

My father complains there are no longer any stars in the sky. He is holding my mom’s hand to stop it from shaking.

I feel I am falling,
falling,
falling…
while failing to make a wish.

 

5. C-sharp

The note C-sharp is what binds all stars and holds this Universe together.
At night you can hear C-sharp quietly buzzing. I imagine it as the endless string connecting and holding together heavenly objects, vibrating, and shimmering.

My umbilical cord was never tied correctly. If I could press my eye to my belly – I could probably see through my untied belly button all that is inside.

 

6. Flossing the Dead

Sometimes the dead are so thick in the air – it’s hard to breathe.

You feel your heart trying and trying to pump blood, but the air is too thick and heavy. The dead get stuck between the teeth, and no flossing can help.

The air bleeds history, and you can’t escape it – even in your loneliest hour, you are never alone.

 

 

The Loyalty of Toes [by Lera Auerbach]

Philippe Faraut's Sculpting Feet [Video Still Frame]

 

1. The Loyalty of Toes

You need to fall, and more than once, before you learn to fly.

Do the words fail me, or do I fail the words?
Words are strange beings, for they are certainly “beings” with their peculiar moods and caprices.

If toes are the fingers of the foot, why do we call them “toes” and not “fingers”?
And why are the fingers not the toes of the hands if the opposite holds true?

In Russian, there is only one word for toes and fingers – pal’tsi. If you want to be specific, you can say pal’tsi na nogah – “fingers on the legs'' or pal’tsi na rukah – “fingers on the arms,” but the word itself remains the same.

It’s surprising how rarely we think of our toes, even though they are always there for us. There is something very loyal in the toes’ devotion. The fingers could lead you into trouble, but not the toes. Toes have no agenda of their own. If anything, they may even help you escape the trouble that the fingers may cause. Yet, we rarely acknowledge their existence or notice their individuality.

2. Vanity

Back in Russia, I used to wear nylon stockings. It was considered impolite to have bare legs. The pantyhose tore easily; it was difficult to mend them unnoticeably unless the run, as they said, was in a place hidden from view.

I was fifteen. I didn’t like to wear stockings – they itched, but many girls wore them even in the winter while I wore two pairs of woolen tights, called gamashi. Winters in Chelyabinsk were brutal. Stockings felt out of place – a summer butterfly amidst the snow. How vain one must be, thought I, to endanger your health like this – just so your legs could shimmer naked through the nylon and appear thin and delicate.

Was I vain too? I did wear pantyhose in the warmer weather when, in fact, it was too warm to wear anything. Perhaps I was.

3. Emotional Body Parts

I wonder if different parts of the body can feel emotions. I don’t mean physical pain. Pain is not an emotion – it is just pain. It can cause emotions, of course, and often it does. But could, for example, toes feel happiness or grief? Could my toes feel misunderstood, sad, or lonely?

Every few weeks, my father trims my mom’s toenails. He does it slowly and carefully as her toenails tend to grow into the skin. He applies red nail polish and carefully blows on her toes as if blessing them individually in some archaic ritual of creation.

I examine my toes – the skin seems flaky-white, dry. I think my toes feel unloved.

 

4. Greetings

The multitude of things is overbearing. Each object needs acknowledgment.

– Hello, drawers.
– Hello, hairbrush.
– Hello, toothpaste.

Everything is made by someone or something, assembled, put together. Yet, I fail to put together my own body parts.

– Hello, toes, – I say to my toes and bend them.
It looks like they are nodding their heads in greeting. If toes had heads, that is.

 

5. For-granted

My mouth is dry; I greet the water. The water likes to be greeted. It tastes better in gratitude.

It’s easy to take body parts for granted. Their feelings get hurt, and that’s when we feel pain and have no choice but to acknowledge their existence. If you have a bellyache, you become aware that you have a belly and intricate intestines with all their wiring inside – even if you may not know precisely how it all functions. After all, if you didn’t have a belly, you couldn’t possibly have a bellyache, even though we’ve been told that phantom pains in missing limbs do exist.

 

6. Why Toes Feel Sad

The toes say “thank you very much” when you take off your shoes. The toes are mostly very polite, unlike the fingers. The fingers can be rude and prideful. The toes are humbler.

Babies like to touch their toes. Babies are compact and generally friendly to their body parts. They wiggle their toes and say hello to them. Or they say some other greeting in their baby-tongue. They try to put toes in their month. Their fingers and toes often touch each other.

But then we grow and get taller and taller until the toes are so far away from our eyes that we forget about their existence, and that is why toes often feel sad. Oh, the quiet sadness of the toes. At least they have each other for company. I wonder if it is enough.

Navigating Through Dreams [by Lera Auerbach]

Japanese Ink on Paper © Lera Auerbach

1. The Air We Breathe

This year we all learned how to wash hands. Perhaps, we didn’t learn but only made a lot of noise. Washing hands, sanitizing, staying in quarantine, balancing lockdowns. Victims of our vocabulary, we hold on to the relative calm. Death is everywhere, but it is also nowhere; it’s the air itself.

The ghosts are shimmering as if trying to conceal tiny openings in the world’s material – the porous nature of time and space. This year we learned not only to wash hands but to count our loved ones. Just in case they disappear through an invisible opening and slip into another realm.

 

2. The Need To Function

The world is a gigantic tuning fork, connecting distant galaxies the way overtones connect to the fundamental tone. Each moment everything is being created anew with each vibration.

One wouldn’t have any problems if one didn’t have to exist in the world. If you are just a soundwave and not a particle – do you have any concerns?  No. The problem is that we exist as both – soundwaves and particles at the same time, and more often, we choose to behave like particles, thus needing to function somehow.

The pull of gravity is at its strongest in the morning when you just returned from the abyss of nothingness. (The ghosts are shimmering as if trying to conceal tiny openings in the world’s material.) 

 

3. Navigation

What happens to the world when we are asleep? We assume that everything stays the same – the room, for instance, doesn’t turn into another room. The furniture remains with all its scratches or other peculiarities. We assume it is the same furniture, but how can one be sure of anything?

In the Quantum Universe, it is quite possible that in our sleep, we slip into some parallel dimension and wake up in a different universe altogether that only looks the same but is not. This is how and why divorces happen. One day, you may realize that the person next to you only appears to be the one you fell in love with, but in fact, is a stranger from an unfamiliar realm.

How to navigate safely through dreams?

(This year, we learned not only to wash hands but to count our loved ones. Just in case they disappear through an invisible opening and slip into another realm. Just in case…)

 

Block-flute [by Lera Auerbach]

 

Marianna and I are at a summer retreat.
I am five years old. I have a wooden recorder
with me, a block-flute. I blow out melodies.

My parents left – they have some urgent matters.
What urgent matters could there be during the summer?
I play my flute. Igor is here with us. 

He is a genius, a chess prodigy who has won
chess games against the former world champions.
He is my brother, and he has very long legs. 

When Igor walks, I must run after him like a dog.
I quickly get tired. Igor puts me on his shoulders.

I imagine myself as an eagle, a stormy petrel, a seagull.
Igor runs; I fly after him – I am the wind.

The wind plays the flute. Grownups lie.
I know – my grandma, Musenka, is dead.
That’s why my parents left.
I will never see her again. Ne-ver.

“Iga, do you know?” I ask, landing my flight.
 “No,” he answers seriously.
Igor is almost an adult. Grownups lie.
(He Knows)

Double Bottom [by Lera Auerbach]

Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

 

When I was twelve, my parents took me camping near Lake Inyshko.

Supposedly, in this lake, Yemelyan Pugachev buried his stolen treasure. The treasure was never found because Lake Inyshko has two bottoms. The first bottom appears solid, just like the floor of a lake, but it’s not – there is a deeper depth beneath it with more water. The treasure sunk under the first level into the depth of the unseen.

My life seems to be like that – it appears solid, but beneath the first bottom, there is water again or different skies that conceal my labyrinth. When I misstep, I sink and find myself in the labyrinthine second layer of Lake Inyshko. I become lost like Pugachev’s treasure. I forget there is a world outside. I hold on to the thread of words and sounds, but I don’t know for certain if I can fully trust this thread.

Is the thread protecting its weaver or does it simply using the weaver’s abilities to manifest its own existence? Am I the weaver of the thread I’m weaving?

I like the notion of letting things go. Letting go makes me giddy; letting go turns me into a disobedient child. But every mischief is followed by a punishment.

Whom am I punishing?

The Solidity of Oceans [by Lera Auerbach]

Acrylic on Canvas by Lera Auerbach

 

1. THE SOLIDITY OF OCEANS

The ocean is still there where I left it. It will remain. It is solid (even though it’s not, but you know what I mean.) It’s dependable (it’s unpredictable; but also, dependable.) It has a smell; it can be touched and tasted. It exists. And that’s a lot – to be certain that something really exists in this world.

2. CREATION OF HUMANS

Once upon a time, there was a Creature. This Creature had a bet with another Creature that it is possible to drink the ocean dry. So, the Creature sat on the shore and started drinking water from the sea. It drank and drank until it had no room left in its belly, but it drank some more and exploded from within into billions of tiny creatures mostly made of water. That’s how humans were born.

3. JUST A MYTH

Perhaps, this greedy Creature never existed. Perhaps, it’s just a myth I made up. But the ocean existed, and it is still here. And I exist because I can feel the ocean. And you exist because you are reading this. So, there must be some truth in this myth. Or if not in this, then in another one. There must be some truth somewhere.

4. RED

One way to prove you exist is to let blood. What a weird way to say it – let blood. The blood is already there, inside of you, whether you let it or not. But what “to let blood” means is to cut yourself. If you bleed – you are alive. It’s that simple. Dead people can bleed too, but only at the beginning of their death. The longer they are dead, the less blood they have left. After a while, nothing red remains.

5. WHERE THE SOUL RESIDES

In old times people thought that the soul resided in the blood. But this didn’t make sense. Let’s say you donate your blood – does it mean you are donating your soul? No, the soul is inside and outside of your body because your body is just like a great painting – a mystery that can be studied and analyzed but never fully understood.

6. WHY WE CAN’T UNDERSTAND GOD

Anything we understand – we can destroy.
That is why we can never understand God.
We can only believe that He (She, It) is.
Or isn’t.
That’s all. 

What Remains? [by Lera Auerbach]

Ink on Music Paper © Lera Auerbach

 

 

What do I remember? 

Sounds, sound all around. 

I don’t know words yet, but I can feel melodies of phrases. 

Everything is music: the voices of people, the wind outside, the bell of the streetcar.

When people speak loudly, I want to cry – there are more sounds than I can hold! 

I have no space left to breathe and gasp for air.

The voices become quieter, slower, lower… 

I can breathe again.

 

(Volume) 

 

 

(2)

 

Mama is teaching her students. 

I am crawling on the rug.
I already know the names of the notes – Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Si.
They are my friends. Each note is a different sound,
and each note is a different color. 

Mama is explaining how sound flies.

If sound can fly – where are its wings? 

Perhaps, they are invisible – the sound is flying and flapping its invisible wings.

How does the sound look without its wings?

Lying on my belly, I try to imagine the body of the sound, without wings.  

Instead of the body – I only see wings – wings of different colors.
‘Do’ is white with a rainbow overflowing on feathers, ‘Sol’ is golden, ‘La’ is red.

I understand now: the sound is the wings – long or clipped, colorful, wavy…
The sound is the flight itself and the trail of after-flight;
the wound left in the air, disappearing like ripples in water.

The sound is what continues to echo in the memory when nothing is sounding.

 

(What Is Sound?)

 

(3)

 

My mother is carrying me in her arms,
“Look at your stroller now. Look at it for the last time.
You will never see it again.”

I see the doorway to the bedroom.
There is my stroller – red, much taller than me.

But what is ‘never’? 

What a strange word – so heavy –
this moment is forever engraved in my memory:
the red stroller and my mother’s words.

 

(What Is Never?)

 

 

(4)

 

My parents do not buy a new stroller.
Instead, they roll me around in a folding carriage,
an accessory intended for a large doll.
I do not like that doll. I’m afraid of her –
her plastic complacency, her empty eyes.
But the doll’s stroller is helpful – I quickly tire of walking.

When I was born, the doctors said I had problems with my legs
and would not be able to walk.
For a year, my frightened mother took me for therapy every day.
I walked ahead of schedule. 

More than walking, I love flying while listening to music,
hundreds of winged creatures – sounds –
holding me up, not letting me fall.

 

(Canceled Sentence)

 

 

(5)

 

My grandmother, Alichka, walks poorly. 

Her legs are bowed like two letters C’s. Pain hides in each step.

Alichka brings me to the Tsvilling Square. 

(She rolls me in the stroller from the doll I do not like.)

On the bench, next to her, sits an old woman with a mourning veil. 

She is mourning for her son. There was a war. Yurochka was only ten. 

He was all swollen from dropsy and hunger. 

He asked for a gun, "Just shoot me, mama." 

The doctor said Yurochka would not survive the night. 

He did not survive.

Alichka: “Maybe you can help us tomorrow with Lera?

Her parents are at work; she’s too weak for a nursery,

but it’s so difficult with my legs.”

 

Marianna entered my life – the guardian of my childhood.

 

(Are You Still Watching Over Me?)

 

 

(6)

 

I'm three and a half.
I can already read words and notes.

I create fairytales and stories –
l tell them to my old Rönisch upright piano.

Without music, words lose their magic. 

If I stand on one leg and press the piano pedal with the other foot –
the wings of sounds become so long
they can fly far away into the great unknown. 

Yet I feel that all is distorted, not what it could be…
But what could it be? 

 

Where do the true sounds hide?

 

(Searching)

 

(7)

 

Too bad that seated, I can’t reach the piano pedals. 

Mama does not allow me to play the piano while standing.
She says it is bad for my professional education.
Luckily, she’s not home during the day, and Marianna doesn’t mind. 

While standing, I can press the pedal and paint an ocean of sounds.
The ocean is calm. The ocean is enormous.
The ocean is the bluest of blues in E-flat major.
Arpeggios of waves slowly float under my fingers. 

 

Now a lonely sail appears / amidst the blue mist of the sea…

Rebellious, it seeks out a storm.*

 

The melody of the sail is full of awe. The sail is thirsty for the storm. 

– Ah, you want a storm? I'll show you a storm!

 

In between the sea and clouds proudly soars the stormy petrel.

He cries out, and the clouds hear his joy in the bird’s cry of courage.

Thunder sounds in foamy anger, the waves groan with the wind in conflict.**

 

A thunderstorm rages in C minor – lots of pedal, clusters of thunder, glissandi of winds. 

 

The ocean was swollen and sullen

Its billows were boiling with fury.***

 

One still hears the theme of the sail,
but it is irreparably destroyed by its daring dream. 

It is drowning – the theme of the sail sounds lower and lower,
sinking to the bottom of the sea.

 

Now the storm has passed.
The ocean is calm again, as before.
Triadic waves splash softly as if nothing had happened.
Only far in the clouds – a memory –
one can hear the theme of the dreamy sail.

I sob with delight and horror at the drama
that just erupted beneath my fingers.

 

*Mikhail Lermontov

** Maxim Gorkyi

*** Alexander Pushkin

 

(The Monstrous Power of Music)

 

(8)

 

When Mama returns, I want to repeat for her the story of the brave, lonely sail. 

But the theme of the sail is different now, and the waves are not the same... 

I cannot repeat my story. As in a crooked mirror –
what was beautiful before has turned into its ugly caricature.

I’m crying, no longer with delight, but with shame: everything’s false again.

Where did the true sounds disappear?

 

(Where?)

 

(9)

 

Mama says, “If you wish to save ‘true’ sounds,
you need to write them down as soon as they are born.”
She hands me a Notebook for Music.

“How do I write them down? With words?”

“Why words? You already know how to write notes.
When you have ideas for words, you should use letters,
but when you hear music – you should use notes.
With the help of notes, you can always find your way back
and remember what you played.
Music notation is a time machine
to travel to the past and to the future.
Written music remains forever.”

 

“Mama, what is ‘forever?’”

 

(What Remains?)

 

(10)

 

Every morning I remember that I have to go to kindergarten and begin to cry.

Papa comes to my crib. He is holding a small empty jar.

I keep on wailing.

“Here, take this – it’s a piggy bank for tears. Tears are precious,

and they should be protected. If you are so intent on crying,

then cry into this jar and save your tears.”

I obediently cry into the jar, accumulate tears.

Each drop – like a caught note written in my Notebook for Music.

Perhaps music notes are unshed tears? 

 

Where are you, my piggy bank of tears?

 

(Unshed Tears)

 

 

Trying To Hold On [by Lera Auerbach]

Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

1. Alone

When you try to hold on – what exactly are you holding onto?

In the labyrinth, Ariadne left a thread for Theseus to help him find his way out after killing the Minotaur.

Just imagine – you are in the darkness, in complete darkness, and all you have is a thread left by a girl you barely know.
Can you trust it?
What choice do you have?
The thread is there to remind you that you are not alone.

But you are alone. Alone in a labyrinth where you need:

1)    to find the Minotaur,

2)    to kill him,

3)    to find your way out.

And all you have to hold on to is this flimsy thread.

 

2. Easy To Forget

It is not so difficult to find the Minotaur.

You are new to the labyrinth, and not accustomed to its smell. The smell of the labyrinth is foul. If you think the Minotaur leaves the labyrinth whenever he has to use the toilet – think again.

The Minotaur, like everyone else, is long lost in the labyrinth. Perhaps he once had discovered the exit but was so accustomed to the maze he felt frightened to step outside. His world was the labyrinth, and the labyrinth was all he knew – he did not wish for another world. The Minotaur was so used to the smell of the labyrinth – the stench didn’t bother him at all. He, the Minotaur, was the labyrinth’s beating heart, and the labyrinth was him. There was nothing outside, nothing at all.

Theseus was new to the labyrinth – the stench was shocking to him. He could find where the Minotaur slept (or, at least, Theseus hoped that the Minotaur was asleep) without a thread, but it was comforting to hold on to something in this darkness; something, that reminded him that there was a world outside of this place, outside of this nothingness, loneliness, and despair. When you are lost in the darkness – it is easy to forget that light exists.

 

3. Wrong Parts

Theseus had nothing against the Minotaur. It was his job to kill him, nothing personal. If anything, he felt sorry for the Minotaur. The Minotaur is a creature made of the wrong parts, the unfortunate relative of the Centaur.

Centaurs are wondrous. They combine the best features of humans (head with brains, torso, and hands) with the best features of horses (four strong legs that allow you to move faster than the wind with hooves which could be deadly in personal combat.) If Theseus had a choice, he would be born a Centaur – free from humans, free from gods, intelligent, and wild.

But what is a Minotaur? It’s a Centaur with all the wrong parts – the vulnerable body of a human with the head and brains of a beast. What could be worse? Only a she-Minotaur, although Theseus was not certain if a female Minotaur existed, he had never met one. Perhaps, they are killed at birth, so they don’t have to suffer through their miserable lives.

 

4. Holding On

Theseus is thinking about the unfortunate Minotaur while slowly walking toward the stench. He has seen plenty of female centaurs – beautiful creatures, just as dangerous as their male counterparts. 

Sometimes life is like that: you are walking through a dark labyrinth towards the beast you will need to kill (or it will kill you.) You have no desire to fight the fight, but the alternative is to remain in the labyrinth forever. You walk for such a long time that you start to wonder if you got it all wrong – and you are the Minotaur, and it’s your labyrinth that you must protect from intruders because the whole world is the labyrinth, and it is blasphemy to think there could be anything else, that there is such thing as “outside.” This thought is strangely comforting – it means that you don’t need to find and fight some unimaginable monster because the monster is you, and you are where you need to be – in the heart of your despair. 

Then you remember the flimsy thread you have been holding. You no longer remember why the thread is in your hand; all you remember is that the thread is there for a reason. It would be so easy to break it; you want to break it, you want to be wild, and mad, and frightening, but you stop yourself because this thread is important. You don’t remember why it is important, but it is; you know it, and you remember to keep the thread safe.

 

Invisibility Leaves Traces [by Lera Auerbach]

 

Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

    My grandmother Alichka, whose birthday I always remember as it coincides with International Women's Day in March, had a Singer sewing machine. It occupied all the wall space between the door and her bed. It had a pedal to step on for the machine to work. Just like my father's Lada car had pedals: a pedal for gas, a pedal for the brake, and even a pedal to make the car roar like a bear. 

    Alichka could mend things without the sewing machine. She had a special plastic mushroom for simple fixes. Let's say you had a hole in your trousers. Alichka would then find the thread of the color of your pants (she had a magical chest of various threads, needles, and buttons; her collection of buttons deserves a poem dedicated to them alone.) Alichka would take her plastic mushroom and place it inside your trousers right under the hole (you must not wear your trousers at that time, of course!) and stitch them in a way you would never guess that the hole was there. Unless it was in a prominently visible place, but even then, it would be noticeable only if someone paid close attention to your trousers. Which rarely happens. 

    Sometimes, there would be no hole yet, only a tear or just the traces of a future tear. Then it was not necessary to undress; you could keep your trousers on while Alichka mended the tear without her Singer machine and without her plastic mushroom – just with her hands. In such cases, out of superstition, she would cut a piece of the thread and give it to you to hold in your mouth during the entire mending procedure. It would ensure that the needle did not accidentally stitch your brain. Not sure exactly how the whole thing worked, but it must have worked just fine. Alichka often mended my clothes, and every single time I held a thread in my mouth while she worked, and I don't believe my brain was accidentally sewn. Or, if it happened, we didn't notice it. 

    When Alichka was stitching, her hands would leave traces in the air. Quick horizontal traces. Just as a conductor paints music with a baton. Conducting lesson 101: imagine you're a painter, and the baton is your brush. Invisibility leaves traces. 

A Fountain Pen [by Lera Auerbach]

Japanese Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

I think all poets should receive a fountain pen for each birthday. A fountain pen would remind them that someone loves them. It will also reinforce the notion that they're not impostors. Because when there are so many great dead people looking over your shoulder at what you are writing, pretty soon, you start to feel like an impostor.

Being a poet is a difficult profession.

Receiving a good fountain pen once a year would remind poets that at least one reader takes their poetic occupation seriously. One reader, just as one word, could make all the difference.

It would be so easy to save a poet. One could do it with relatively small out-of-pocket expenses by hiring them an occasional housekeeper, presenting them with a nice pen, and offering them publications; this way, poets can be clean, have a writing instrument, and feel needed, which is more than enough to get through tough times. And for poets, tough times are most of the time, even with some occasional pampering.

The End [by Lera Auerbach]

The Tree – Acrylic on Canvas by Lera Auerbach

 

THE END

(1)

It is hard to know how to start a book.  

Its ending is an even greater mystery. 

How do you know you’ve finished
writing the book you're writing?

After all, the end is never the end
(unless you die just as you’ve finished the last sentence.)

Some may argue that even if you (meaning the reader)
or I (meaning the author) die in the previous sentence,
even that would be no more of an end
than death (which is, in all fairness,
rarely the end of anything.) 

This is why suicides are so useless.
Because nothing really ends,
and a lot of new troubles begin.
Everything remains, even more than before
outside of your control (since you are dead
and can't do much about it.)

(2)

Why have so many poets killed themselves?

(3)

I have a young peach tree, which we planted in the backyard of our dacha in hopes that one day it would produce delicious peaches. When we planted it – the tree looked healthy and full of green leaves. Soon its leaves turned yellow and then fell. All of them. Instead of a tree, I had what looked like a naked dead branch sticking out of the ground. 

Perhaps it is not dead, I thought. Perhaps this tree is of a poetic, sensitive nature and, just like a poet, needs attention and nourishment. Instead of pulling the dead stick out of the ground, I bought fruit-tree vitamins – large spikes full of nourishment, which I pressed into the ground all around the roots. The next morning, the tree was still without any leaves, but it was covered in tiny white flowers – the tree was alive and grateful. 

If we could find every poet in the moment of despair and offer him or her some vitamins, perhaps not so many would end up killing themselves. And there is always the next suicidal poet waiting for some kindness. Even if he or she has not written a single line of poetry.

 

Out of Reach [by Lera Auerbach]

Ink on Music Paper © Lera Auerbach

 

When something is out of reach – sometimes it is just out of reach by a tiny bit, not close enough to grasp, but almost there. At other times, it is so enormously out of reach that reaching for it is altogether unthinkable. 

Jessye Norman was giving a masterclass at the Juilliard School. A student singer had difficulty reaching the highest note; it kept sounding flat and unrefined. The harder she tried, the worse it sounded. Norman stopped the student. She whispered to her, "The note is already there. All you have to do is let it sound. Just like that." And Norman sang a perfectly executed passage without any preparation.

 

A Lie [by Lera Auerbach]

Finek

My dog
whimpered
quietly
in his sleep.
His legs
were twitching –
he had a nightmare.

I woke him up
gently
with a lie:
“It’s all right,
I will never
leave you
alone.”

 

 

Sweet Tooth [by Lera Auerbach]

Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

I walked
around the house
in search
of chocolate.
(There must be
some chocolate
somewhere, right?)

No, I don’t think
it’s a sweet tooth
craving,
I just have
an excess
of dissonances
today.

Chocolate makes
dissonances
resolve.

(Or it doesn’t.)

Regardless,
somehow,
you feel
better.

(Or you don’t.)

Oh well,
At least,
you’ve tried.

 

Geography [by Lera Auerbach]

Watercolor on Paper by Lera Auerbach

I am looking at the world globe with my father.

He points and says: “This is where you are.”

“What do you mean? I am here with you,”
I respond, not understanding.

Father laughs: “You are here, but you are also there.”

“You mean there is a tiny copy of me who lives there?”

“No, I mean here is there.”

That did not make any sense, so I never learned geography.

 

Starting a Zuihitsu on (Un)deliveries [by Lera Auerbach]

Photo Credit: Lera Auerbach

(1)

At times like this, I feel sorry for postal workers.
It must be very stressful to be one.
To always have to sort things out while thinking of viruses.

One can easily distinguish a postal worker who thinks of viruses from the one who doesn't.
Those who think wear gloves and masks. But most of them do not; most of them are young and careless.

At the beginning of the pandemic, an entire hotel in China that was converted into a hospital for coronavirus patients had collapsed suddenly, killing everyone inside.
How does a building suddenly collapse? 
How does a human being? 
What is the breaking point? 
What is that something, usually insignificant in itself, that makes all the difference between life and death?

I think of Sylvia Plath.
How she returned to her dirty home (her housekeeper left), overwhelmed by unhappiness, with her two small children always in need of her care.
If she had returned to a spotlessly clean and welcoming house instead of a messy one full of dirty dishes and laundry, would she still have killed herself? 

Perhaps, but maybe not then.
Maybe the breaking point would still hold a while longer.

(2)

Last year there was a postal worker who was overwhelmed by his responsibilities of daily deliveries of packages.
He just had too many parcels to deliver to too many houses and not enough time allotted to do so.
Even if he worked past his hours, he still could not manage all deliveries and be often scolded by his superiors for the delays.

At first, he kept undelivered packages in the trunk of his car in hopes of delivering them the next day, but the next day he would have a new bunch of boxes, and soon the trunk of his car was too full.
After a while, he gave up on the idea of being able to deliver everything, so he left all packages he could not deliver in a shed next to his house. 

He hoped to deliver them one day when his daily load would be lighter, but such a day never came.
After a while, the shed was full of packages, and he had to keep the new ones in the garage.
He never opened the boxes.

In his mind, he never stole them, he just kept them for better delivery times.
It was not his fault that better times were slow in coming.

Nobody appreciated any of his past accomplishments (for he did make numerous safe and timely deliveries) when police discovered his shed and his garage full of packages belonging to other people.

He tried to argue that the packages didn't belong to anyone – they were still in transit on the way to their final destination, but some of them were in transit for over a year and, after all that time, were considered missing in action like lost soldiers.

(3)

Sometimes my poor head makes me feel like the trunk of this poor man's car with too many deliveries scheduled in too short a time, and I feel like giving up.

At night, I stare into all these packages in my head.
I try to imagine what lies within each.
I look at the names of people and imagine them as characters in my book. 

Then the clock chimes and reminds me that it is too late for everything.
Too late even to try. 

(4)

A dog doesn't know if something is too late. 
Unless it's related to food. 
Because, as far as a dog is concerned, food always comes too late and never too early.

(5)

Life is mostly unbearable. And full of wonders.
Partially, it is unbearable because it is full of wonders.
Just think of all the undelivered wonders the postal worker kept in his garage.

But many wonders would not fit into any packaging and can't be delivered because they are just too great. 

Like the night when Venus and the moon were so close together, and we sat on the bench next to the ocean and felt so happy about the present moment that it also felt sad. 

Great happiness is always sad because it overflows and spills into sadness; happy sadness because it is just too vast to stay happy.

The chorus of frogs after the storm is like that.
Also Gesualdo's music and the Montserrat cathedral – you almost hate it, it's so beautiful.

A good book feels like that: overflowing without beginning or ending, even without a middle, happening all at once and about everything and nothing in particular. 

The only thing that separates a good book from nonexistence is its two covers: that's not much of protection from nothingness, not much at all.

Viennese Traffic Lights [by Lera Auerbach]

In Vienna, they have same-sex pedestrian traffic lights.

Typically, traffic lights are sexist: they display a matchstick figure of a man that turns green or red and sometimes flashes nervously, trying to speed up pedestrians so that cars can start driving.

In Vienna, they replaced the matchstick man with two matchstick figures holding hands.
No, I mean touching hands since matchstick figures have no fingers. 

In some Viennese traffic lights, instead of a matchstick man, there is a matchstick woman figure. No curves, but a triangle of a dress. Instead of a flashing man, there is a flashing triangle of a woman or, even better, two women touching hands. 

Gay traffic lights appear only in the center of the most touristy areas.

"Such a progressive city," I thought.

"No," my Viennese friend Verena objected. "They are more intolerant than most; they just hide it better." 

My apartment in Vienna remains empty throughout the pandemic, and sometimes I imagine that a part of me lives there, but then I remember about the lockdowns and quarantines and feel gratitude for spending the pandemic away from any large cities – in the Middle of Nowhere, surrounded by nature.

With the flights cancelled, cars parked, restaurants closed, and theatres and concert halls paused in a year-long fermata, the traffic lights in Vienna remain working, touching invisible fingers of the matchstick figures made of lights and reminding us that human touch may still be possible again one day and isolation will not last forever.

 

From My Diary No. 3 – February 2020

 

Inner Voices – Oil on Canvas by Lera Auerbach

(1.)

I think of the mountain from Rafael's childhood.
Once upon a time, there lived a woman.
Her name was Soledad.
Nobody lives on that mountain now.
Nobody is left who remembers Soledad,
only Stella (Rafael's mother) and Rafael.
She's also in my memory.
And if you are reading this, she's now in your memory, too.

You may forget about Soledad as soon as you finish reading this.
Or, perhaps, I may make her a bit more memorable
or bring her name again later, so if you forget her now,
you will remember when you see her name later on.

Soledad was 82 years old when she died.
The house, high in the mountains, had no electricity,
and each morning, she would milk cows and look around for snakes.

Snakes loved the sun and would come out to lie on the stones.
Some of the snakes were poisonous, but they only bite if frightened.

Nobody knows how Soledad appeared and from where she came.
She was always living with Rafael's family, although she was not related to any of them.

Soledad never married.
Every night she would make bread in the oven,
enough for the whole family.
She would drink coffee all day long,
and her hands smelled of coffee, bread, and milk.

When we moved to our house in Florida, Rafael bought a machete to protect against the snakes.
He never used it, and the machete was lost,
just as so many things tend to get lost and never found again.

(Where do all these lost things go?)

 

(2)

Before coming to the Mayo Clinic, I was preparing to perform my 'Arctica' with the Oslo Philharmonic.
In my hotel room in Rochester, I had a piano, and after long days of tests and doctor's consultations,
I would return and practice for the upcoming concert.

Very few people knew I was at the Mayo Clinic. One of them was Enric Sala.
Enric is an explorer with National Geographic and my partner in the "Arctica" project.
Enric encouraged me to put my health first and not to postpone the surgery.
I don't know if I would have the strength to cancel my performance in Oslo without Enric's support and perspective.

Fortunately, the presenters found another pianist who was able to learn the solo part in time.
The performance in Oslo went on as scheduled.
I felt like the captain who abandoned the ship, yet the ship miraculously sailed on,
while the captain was left alone on the reefs, bruised and confused.

Each day in the hospital, some part of me was in Oslo, rehearsing with the choir,
rehearsing with the orchestra, practicing alone.
Another part of me was back in the Arctic, listening to its silence (which is never silent)
and trying to grasp the enormity of its solitude.

Arctica – the fragile giant, the North of the North.

Only a small part of me, the least real one, was in the hospital,
trying to walk around my room (ten steps in each direction)
while holding onto the IV stand.

I also used the IV stand in my symphony as a musical instrument –
it is how "Arctica" starts – with the sound of drops falling from an IV stand.
Sound of time passing, ice melting, seconds and droplets melting away.

(Sound of a hospital, of a medical emergency, of life passing or life renewing itself.)

 

(3.)

Generally speaking, quarantines need to be continuous –
since at any time in any given place, there are plenty of contagious illnesses.
One quarantine should melt into another.

Quarantines shouldn't be limited to viruses.
For example, when there is a spike in fatal crashes while driving,
there should be a few days per week when driving is forbidden.
Or at least limited to certain hours.
Let's say one would be allowed to drive between 2:00 and 5:00 AM at night
when nobody drives, but not during rush hours.
It would certainly balance things and improve statistics.

The researchers at the Mayo Clinic explained to me that Cushing disease
has only a 30% success rate of treatment by operation in Germany,
while in the USA, the rate of success is 100%.

"How could it be?" I asked.

"We operate on healthy people," the researcher explained. "In Germany, they wait
until you are damaged by the illness. Healthy people have a 100% recovery rate."

Statistics are a powerful thing.

For example, if there is a spike in divorces, let's freeze all marriages for a while.
Fewer marriages result in fewer divorces.

It's not a bad idea to quarantine all children; they seem to get ill much more often.
Healthy children equal healthy nations.

And definitely forbid people from gathering.

(Let's approach life in a way to improve statistics.)

 

(4.)

Why would anyone want to gather anyway? I never understood that.
Much better to stay at home and read good books.

Or you can listen to orchestral music using noise-cancelling earphones.
Noise cancellation is vital because this is how audible viruses (for example, news) get in.
The earphones don't fully protect you from noise, so when you are not listening to symphonic music,
you should wear earplugs with noise-cancelling earphones on top of the earplugs.

If someone asks you a question, just nod in response.
Nobody expects you to listen anyway.
Nodding is similar to clicking likes under social media posts –
you just add your support to the ego-boosting activities of your friends.
Nobody expects you to actually read their posts or click on their links (unless they contain cute animals, of course.)
After all, if you start reading and clicking on all posts of all your friends, most of whom you have never met,
you will never live to be 82 like Soledad, who lived alone in the mountain and never owned a computer.

The other positive side of a continuous quarantine
is that the Apocalypse loses its edge after a while.
One can scream, "We are all doomed!" only until one loses one's voice.
After a while, it's no longer believable.

But I'm worried about my parents. They are 82 like Soledad.
They don't fully understand the weight of the impending disaster, even though they have a computer and television and other viral spreading news outlets. They still venture outside and are reckless enough to visit various doctors wherein the waiting rooms they wait for sick people to spread more germs around.

Their refusal to quarantine themselves saddens me.

I have quarantined myself from everyone long ago, for that's what a writer must do anyway.

(It comes with the territory.)

 

(5.)

Can poetry and music, serious music, still be written?
In times when people have forgotten how to listen,
how to keep silent, how to remain still?

Perhaps I am starting to sound depressive.
As my doctors have warned me, cortisol deficiency can take its toll.

Every week, I receive a questionnaire from the Mayo Clinic.
The questionnaire is always the same.
It compares my attitude and feelings before and after the surgery.

I don't think my answers have changed so far, but I do not know for sure
since I did not keep my previous answers.
Probably, researchers may find my data disappointing.
They would like to see a graph. A graph is when lines go up and down.
Flat graphs are boring. Flat graphs are unremarkable.
Like rubber ducklings in a bathtub of a polar bear hunter.

Keep it together, I say to myself.
But I am worried that I may not be able to keep it all together
and may turn into a soundwave or break into tiny particles
that no longer make any sense and can't be reconstructed.

(I wish I could go to that mountain and meet Soledad,
who never, I am sure, worried about becoming a soundwave.)

 

 

From My Diary – February 2020 No. 2 [by Lera Auerbach]

Home © Lera Auerbach, Oil on Canvas

(1)

The doctors warned me that I might get depressed after the surgery.
Before the surgery, my tumor was producing five times more cortisol than normal. 

After the surgery, it would take months before my remaining adrenal gland would start producing enough cortisol.

In between, I will feel tired and low even though I will be taking hydrocortisone pills.
Ideally, I will be able to taper them off slowly, reducing the dose every week.

"It will be a long and tiring process," the doctors assured me. 

"I felt tired and depressed before the surgery so that it will be nothing new," I tried to reassure my doctors.

"Yes, but before, you felt tired and depressed because you had too much. After, you will feel so because you don't have enough. It's very different," the doctors seemed concerned.

The doctors seemed tired. And somewhat depressed.
But they were also excited because they would get to cut my tumor off. And cutting tumors is exciting and admirable.
And then one gets to experiment with those tumors once they are cut and out.
No patient asks for a tumor back or expresses the wish to keep it for a souvenir in formaldehyde on a shelf in a library
or on a bedside table. So, the doctors get to play with other people's tumors and write papers about their findings.  

(2)

My clock lost its hands and could no longer tell time.
"It's okay," I reassured doctors. "I understand the complications."  

"You may no longer feel like yourself," the doctors continued.
"I'm not sure if I feel like myself now before the surgery," I said. 

It was true. I could not tell if I felt on top of the world, or downright miserable,
or even if it mattered at all how I felt. I no longer knew.

After the surgery, I discovered that my tumor was made of fear.
That's why it was producing so much cortisol: the fight-or-flight hormone. 

Now, while the remaining adrenal gland is still half-asleep, I seem not to feel fear.
No, I don't feel particularly brave, but rather… indifferent.  

Fears are hopes in disguise.
Have I lost hopes too?

(3)

One of the scars on my belly is bigger than the others. 

Sometimes, I dream it becomes unglued, my belly opens up,
and my insides start falling out for everyone to see. 

Last night I dreamt I was having surgery, but the surgeon kept forgetting what kind of surgery it was
and kept waking me up to ask over and over again. He was also not sure if he had my name right.
Drugged by anesthetics, I kept misspelling my name until I, too, was doubting if I was the right patient. 

(4) 

It is now two weeks and three days since my surgery, and I can no longer see the surgeon's initials
marked on my belly next to the four scars. Strangely, I miss them. 

The scars also look different. The glue has partially fallen off, and under the bond, there is some pink skin 
senza the red-and-black drama of stabbing wounds.

The remaining glue looks dirty and gray, like the residue left by Scotch tape.
My belly still looks inflated; for the surgery, they filled it with gas and fluids. 

I do not know how to answer how I'm feeling because I do not know what I am feeling and, more importantly,
how I'm supposed to be feeling. The best thing to do with feelings is to transport them. 

I know what I'm feeling if I hear it in music or read it in a poem.
But without art, without its forms, how can I name the unnamable?  

After the storm, the choir of frogs sings "Alleluia"
while Venus and the moon are getting ever closer each night this week. 

(5)

Anything can become anything can become anything. 

I love nights because nights hide; you can imagine something magical,
and there is no evidence to the contrary. 
That's why witches preferred to fly at night. Shady characters. 

But if flying on a broomstick seems childish,
why is wearing a cross with a brutally murdered Jew any better? 

Each religion pulls the symbolic blanket of righteousness on its side.
My god is the only true god; my beliefs are the most believable. 

My friend Burcin in Minnesota said, "I believe in butter. Because butter makes everything better." 
But probably even 'I believe in butter' belief could find its opposition. 

I believe in music. But does music believe in me?

I am here but also absent. 

 

 

From My Diary – February 2020 [by Lera Auerbach]

Suite del Ocells © Lera Auerbach

(1)

At first, the days were numbered.
They were numbered before the surgery and then after.

Going under is a bit like dying, but you know you will wake
and that you are not entirely alone in this.
You welcome the temporary oblivion that anesthesiology provides.

What if we knew for certain that reincarnation is real?
Would it change our fear of dying?

The days after surgery are marked by progress,
life stripped to its essentials.

The body learns how to function again, how to adapt,
and you are just grateful for any sleep you can get.

You long for things to return to normal, or at least their appearance,
even though you suspect that the new normal and the old may never be reconciled.

The news from Europe and Asia is full of numbers and statistics:
the new virus ravaging through China has made its way to Europe.

I don't turn on the TV in my hospital room.
Instead, I open the All Good Things book on my Kindle.

I enlarge each painting or drawing and drown in each image, appreciating its beauty.
The book is a personal anthology created by Stephen Ellcock –
one of the very few people I follow on social media.

(Every day Stephen posts images that speak volumes;
images that reassure me that not everything is dismal and there is beauty
hidden in the open, just waiting for someone to give it form.)

(2)

Today is the 24th of February 2020.

As I write this, I feel the longing for the present moment – this moment in time.

Last week, I was in the hospital at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
It was snowing, and February felt as cold as the Februaries of my childhood in Chelyabinsk.

I remember waking up in intensive care after the surgery.
The pain was overwhelming.
If I have to endure this pain all my life, I would rather die, I thought.

There were two men in intensive care in hospital beds like me
and some shadowy nurses. I couldn't see them clearly:
everything doubled in my eyes and made me feel nauseous.

One of the men was moaning.
The other was interrogated by doctors or nurses
who kept on asking him if he had ever had a heart attack.
They just kept on repeating the same questions,
but the man didn't seem to understand them.

Or did I dream this up?

When I woke up, nobody was next to me.
For a moment, I thought I had already died and this combination
of pain, nausea, loneliness, and moaning was hell or purgatory,
or whatever is waiting for us in the forever beyond.

I drifted in and out.

Then there was a nurse next to me.
She kept on repeating the same question over and over again,
"Can you rate the level of your pain on the scale from one to ten?"

At first, I could not understand what she was saying.
How can you measure pain? The enormity of it.
And how would such a scale look?

How would one take all this shapeless pain and put it on a scale?
Wouldn't the pain spill and fill the entire room, overflowing?
I was drowning in pain, and I was asked to measure it?
How do you rate your drowning experience?
Unbearable?
Almost unbearable?
Almost bearable?
When everything doubles in your eyes – does it mean that your pain doubles too?

I found it difficult to speak or to find my tongue.
The nurse put something soothing on my lips.

"How do you rate your pain on the scale between one and ten?" she asked again.
She didn't seem to be annoyed by my silence.

"It is ten," I managed to whisper.
Then I thought again. I was able to withstand it somehow.
It means it could have been worse.

"Maybe nine," I corrected myself.

"I'll give you more painkillers," said the nurse,
and a sickening wave of nausea took me into its current.

"All is doubled," I managed to say;
and heard before being carried into oblivion:

"She has a very low pulse…"

"Still high pain…"

"Too long…"

(Too long...)

(3)

Before the surgery, they strip me naked.
Completely naked. Underwear and all.

I put on a robe that has an opening in the back.
The robe doesn't close well.
I feel like a baby just born into the world, completely defenceless.

There are many people.
They come and introduce themselves:
surgical team, anesthesiologists, nurses.

Each person asks my name and date of birth,
what surgery I am having, and on which side.
They know it, but it's the protocol –
I'm told it's for my own safety.

After continually repeating my name and date of birth
for each new face entering the room, I start to feel strangely removed from myself
as if I'm saying the name of someone else, not my own.

Indeed, this particular combination of letters and syllables feels almost random.
I'm me, but not my name.
But if I'm not my name, then who am I?

I think about it while I lay naked,
waiting for the nurses to roll me into the surgery room.
They roll my bed through corridors so fast I get dizzy and cold.

In the operating room, I notice that I'm the only one not wearing a mask.
I remember: they will put some kind of a breathing apparatus
into my nose and throat after I fall asleep.

They will also put a catheter, make four openings in my ribs
for the instruments and the camera.
And I will not feel or remember any of it.

One of the surgical assistants lifts my robe and, with a marker,
writes something on my belly on the right side,
just around the place they will cut.

Later, I discover next to the angry-looking scars,
two large black letters, TM.
Why TM?
For some reason, I remember this abbreviation from some time ago
when I was learning transcendental meditation.
But transcendental meditation has nothing to do with it,
although perhaps it is also some sort of anesthesiology.

TM stands for Trevor McKenzie, the name of the surgeon.
The letters, written in a sharpie, remain next to the scars for weeks after the surgery.
I feel tattooed or branded, but it doesn't upset me, I find it rather amusing.

Everything is so strange – it must be happening to someone else.
Not me, but to the person whose name and date of birth
I recite mechanically to everyone who enters my hospital room.

The initials of the surgeon's name on my belly feel more like a sculptor’s signature.
Let your initials signify your responsibility, welcoming my future without the tumor.

(I shall be your greatest masterpiece, my surgeon.)

(4)

The time in intensive care with shadowy nurses and moans feels endless –
dark void, unbearable, unending.

The next time I wake up, I'm in the hospital room,
I can see the snow falling through the dark windows,
it's late evening.

Where did this day go?
We came to the hospital early in the morning.

Rafael is in the room.
My lips are so swollen I can't talk.
My lips are blocking my voice.

"All shall be well," repeats Rafael.

I feel empty and light-headed,
so I let my mind fill with this thought.

All shall be… shall… Why shell?
Does it mean all is not well now but will be well in the future?
Does it mean that this thought is a shell?
And if it is a shell, what is the real thought within its protective embrace?

But I'm too tired to open the shell.

(I drift into sleep again.)

(5)

Today is exactly two weeks since my surgery.
Two weeks felt like two months. Or two years.
But not entirely in a bad way.

My previous life feels distant, not quite real.
Yet my life now is even less real in its normalcy, in its un-remarkableness.

The bloody mess is all around, yet nowhere to be seen.
IKEA's designs are maddening.

There are 80 cases of coronavirus in New York now.

(People have stopped consuming Corona beers out of superstition.)

(6)

The scars on my belly do not have stitches or threads, only glue.
The glue is still there after two weeks.
In one of the four scars, it's starting to peel off.

"In a year or so none will be visible," Rafael assures me,
probably concerned over me being concerned over my scarred appearance.

I'm not concerned. The scars make the surgery real.
Without them, it all seems to be a dream within a dream.

Maybe some part of me is forever stuck in the purgatory of Intensive Care,
trying to measure the unmeasurable and weigh the unthinkable,
while someone in monotone keeps on asking about a failed heart?

Can someone attack your heart?
Can your heart attack someone?
Can your heart be broken?

(Even the smallest feather could tip the point.)

(7)

I was ill, I had surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,
and I had to cancel my upcoming concerts.

Finally, I returned home to pick up my life but found that in the meantime,
the world, too, had fallen ill.

Unlike me, the world is steadily getting worse and not on the mend at all.
People went mad with fear of catching a deadly virus,
and panic is spreading across the borders.

Rafael bought 25 dry army breakfasts that are supposed to last for 25 years.
Then he bought 25 dry army dinners and a massive bottle of water.

"We should probably buy more cat food," he said.

(After all, Aya, our cat, may not want dry army breakfasts for years to come.)

(8)

I wish to make the world around me understandable,
but everything around me, every object, contains something
that refuses to be defined.

I write in order to understand, not vice versa.
But understanding, if any, is fleeting and cunning –
a red fox-demon, a clock with cut-off hands of time.

(I stand empty-handed.)