A Summer Sunday, 1934

Commonweal, Sept 27, 2002 by Nancy Neiman-Hoffman

A Summer Sunday, 1934

   Hands empty at her waist, waiting to receive me,
   my mother smiles at me in my father's arms.
   Sleeves loose and cool,
   a cascade of lace at her chest: it must be Sunday.
   I am nine months old, watching my mother's face.
   A summer Sunday after church,
   my father newly called to shepherd
   the Plymouth Meeting flock.

   He is thirty-three, his dark handsome face
   betraying the Jewishness he wanted to deny.
   Reserved, interior, quiet, not-to-be-found,
   he wears a half-smile for the camera.
   He is posing.
   Even then, even here,
   an outsider. And for the rest of his life,
   the lonely only child.
   My mother the sun around which
   everything revolves.

   Summer passes, and the moment, as unrepeatable
   as a cloud.
   My mother died at ninety-five, not knowing my name.
   My father struggled always
   against the current, hardly built to shepherd anyone,
   his failure redeemed on the hallowed ground
   of steadfastness.