Margo Berdeshevsky was born in New York City in 1945; she was an actress; she has lived in Hawaii; she currently lives in Paris. But a Passage in Wilderness is her first poetry collection (Sheep Meadow Press, 2007). Her works have appeared in Agni, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New Letters, Poetry International, Runes, Siècle 21, Europe. Her Tsunami Notebook of poems and photographs followed a journey to Sumatra in Spring 2005, to work in a survivors' clinic in Aceh. A book of short fictions, Beautiful Soon Enough, and Vagrant, a poetic novel, wait at the gate. The cover art for But a Passage in Wilderness is one of her montages.
communion
Let us come into communion
The sea is sick of fish--randomly, it wants a god.
Black-weather bird, you are a scratch on silver. The scratch will not
be repaired, what use is polish?
Whom do you follow after the falconer?
Across the field, bells hang in darkness braver than the stars.
Once bells could speak. Who silenced them once, lies quiet.
The Berlin wall stood built for twenty-eight years, its stones like
Jericho's, fell. Wall after wall after wall. When will our wall fall?
Be the bell. Be the bell.
: that the hand of the prophet should let you fall when you are
most fervently at prayer and climbing. that the blue and golden chips
of the Alhambra are gifts, borne in the willing palms of revenants. Be
the bell and be the bell.
"Je garde / mon ange," mon Cocteau. Let us come into communion.
When will a chance wing randomly come in to save us, ever? How much
does it hurt? Who can count skin? Let us come in to communion.
On metro stairs where the redhead I know wears gloves to protect against
viruses, La Peau du Chagrin's poster--Skin of Sorrow--shouts.
On the street of deportations in the cold zone of our winter of memory, this
winter of memory, the neighbors are lined to nod to a barrel that contains
what remains of the days of skin the days of remembering the days of
killing kin that have never ended only changed skeletons, only changed skin
in a locked room writing one word, love, in water, on the walls.
--Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, Paris, France--
*first published in POOL
be repaired, what use is polish?
Whom do you follow after the falconer?
Across the field, bells hang in darkness braver than the stars.
Once bells could speak. Who silenced them once, lies quiet.
The Berlin wall stood built for twenty-eight years, its stones like
Jericho's, fell. Wall after wall after wall. When will our wall fall?
Be the bell. Be the bell.
: that the hand of the prophet should let you fall when you are
most fervently at prayer and climbing. that the blue and golden chips
of the Alhambra are gifts, borne in the willing palms of revenants. Be
the bell and be the bell.
"Je garde / mon ange," mon Cocteau. Let us come into communion.
When will a chance wing randomly come in to save us, ever? How much
does it hurt? Who can count skin? Let us come in to communion.
On metro stairs where the redhead I know wears gloves to protect against
viruses, La Peau du Chagrin's poster--Skin of Sorrow--shouts.
On the street of deportations in the cold zone of our winter of memory, this
winter of memory, the neighbors are lined to nod to a barrel that contains
what remains of the days of skin the days of remembering the days of
killing kin that have never ended only changed skeletons, only changed skin
in a locked room writing one word, love, in water, on the walls.
--Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, Paris, France--
*first published in POOL
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