Andrei Podell

Alice Moses is one of the very first heart connections I made when I came to the US in 1962.  Our friendship and love  for each other only gets stronger with time. Along with her partner, Aubrey Putnam, she was one of the very few with whom I could entrust Stefan and Andrei when they were little boys

Marcelle

---

In a far time in the distant City, we enter the house on the hill. Stefan greets us. He stands at the foot of the stairs, grasping something in his left arm. He raises his finger, pointing to your room upstairs. Says softly and solemnly, in an admonitory tone, “Andwei shweeping.” We smile and talk quietly. How you can make your presence felt, even in sleep.

Time passes and in the same house, the same door opens and Marcelle comes in and puts you down. I rise from the couch-why was I waiting there?-and you see me. With a shriek of joy, you cross the room, shining, and fling your arms around my knees. You bury your face against my legs. Briefly you hug me and I am the only thing in your world. Then that moment is over. You let go and are away.

Memories of you, Marcelle, Stefan, Jerry come like that: flashes in sepia, color, some moving, some frozen, all gemmed by distance in the brain’s strange symmetry.

Now another door has opened before anyone was ready and again you have let go and moved on. Thirty years since I’ve seen or touched you and you’re gone beyond seeing, beyond holding. Yet here you are, in me, as you have been ever since you entered my life. Why isn’t that enough?

In a new time, distant from that far City, I sit in a hard chair and stare at these insufficient words and weep. The chimes ring faintly in the warm night wind. The crickets have never paused in their singing. I want to believe you are everywhere now but there’s no comfort in that. Loving you, loving all you left behind, I remember and return to the present. I open the door, wait for peace to enter in.

Alice

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.