One Art Too Much
I find the art of loving so hard to master,
my brush strokes invariably take a wrong
turn & wind me up in one dead-end corner
after another: First, with Eddie W. His dolor
tainted my paintings beyond salvage. I moved on,
the art of loving him impossible to master.
Next, Jerry S.—a piece of work I regret ever
starting up with, but for our daughter & son
whom he sent running to my corner
soon after Alfred R. came to inspire me more
than my painting could convey. I penned a song
to honor him: “Loving You, All That Matters.”
That, no big hit, I hit the canvas, piled on color,
painted harder, faster, over a slew of objections.
Disaster! I got palette-knifed into a sticky corner
evidenced in the “R Family” gallery where,
with post-it plaque, a huge portrait was hung
titled “Loving You, Too Much To Muster.”
The 5’ 2” tempera (unsigned), me in a dark corner.
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Dad
His coma doesn’t stop him
from pacing his touch
like a metronome
his thumb sweeping
back and forth
on the side of my hand
on the mattress
of his hospital bed
I sit beside
while somewhere the hands
of a clock stop.
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I
Old man standing in the tower,
you cast your gaze on sea and land,
autumnal inhalations, ourselves,
our origins, our destiny.
II
In the laborious weaving
of your wear, we labor
beholden to you, father —
your whims and veracity.
III
O, thing of mystery, savage
and tender, you fool the troubled
and the comforted. Friend
and foe, we bow to you.
IV
In your heaving swell
of the second, the hour,
the day, dwells the trappings
of water and wind.
V
Your bronze shadow settling
on high horizons, the night
descends, tilted in the air.
The wind gasps, waters grind.
VI
Moving room to room
along corridor and stair,
from green sides to gold sides,
you flutter your empty sleeves.
VII
Theatrical distances, mountainous
atmospheres of sky and sea
measured to the hour of solitude
— all, your ghostly demarcations.
VIII
Plato’s ghost, Aristotle’s skeleton, you
trace the gold sun about the brightened sky
without invasion by a single metaphor.
Look at it in its essential barrenness.
IX
The more than ordinary blue
contains the year and other years.
The day enriches the year
not as embellishment.
X
The distant fails the clairvoyant eye.
In stride, we accept what is as good,
the utmost as our fortune, as honey-
hived in the trees. One day enriches a year.
XI
You rise from land and sea
like a mountain halfway green,
the other half immeasurable
in its brilliant mercy.
XII
Steeped in remembrance, you
display strength, youth, vital
sun and heroic power. Eternal,
the foliage and rock.
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Thank God for you, Henry Gibbins,
ship of dreams laden with bedraggled brethren
dark and fair, tall and short, frail-boned and gaunt, each
and every one a survivor reborn in the wake of conscience.
Blessed, their leader, Ruth Gruber; praised,
her leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
and you, Captain Korn, your kind face and outstretched arms;
your smiling crew, their helpful hands,
your great vessel's stalwart bulk, hallowed halls
and glistening white toilets, sky-crowned decks surrounded by sea-
speckled rail — a far cry
from barbed wire.
Divine are you, clean fresh air that fills sunken chests,
lungs ashen from the fires of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, Dachau, Treblinka.
Revered are you, buoyant sea, your strong currents
and changing tides, gulls that glide the breeze
and assuage wounded spirit;
and you, dining halls bejeweled with vegetables,
cornucopia of meats, kaleidoscope of sweets that swell shrunken bellies,
smooth withered souls, “Are you America?”
each wary sojourner asks. Soft pillows and ample blankets nestled
in vast tiers of bunks, nightmares you help smother,
sweet dreams you set in motion, “Are you?”
O, most wondrous throng — huddled masses —
it is you who are America! My America!
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The Henry Gibbins was a U.S. army transport ship within a naval convoy that carried these 982 “most needy” holocaust survivors over the waters of war-ravaged Europe, German air-fire besieging the convoy
en route to America and the Isle of Manhattan, NY July 1944. It was on August 3, 1944 that the Henry Gibbins sailed through N.Y. Harbor, where the dazed refugees were bedazzled by the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline—not a dry eye on the ship. The sojourn, from unimaginable enslavement and tyranny to safety, named “Safe Haven,” continued, by railroad to Oswego, NY and the army base Ft. Ontario—the base converted to a shelter for these home-less, country-less peoples—safe haven for the weary, bedraggled group from August 5, 1944 to February 19, 1946. There, for those 18 months, these wounded souls began healing and preparing for their moves into homes and apartments across America.
Today, the site of Ft. Ontario, stands as a memorial to these survivors; the original administration building, named “Safe Haven Museum and Education Center,” houses priceless photographs and documents mapping that extraordinary journey out of darkness and into the light.
