Drawing by Susan C. Price
Passover
By Eric Meub
Passover
By Eric Meub
A breakfast table mystery: I see
each section – Datebook, Sports, Society –
but not the front page. Mother starts to shrink
when asked about it, busy at the sink.
All morning long she hunts some missing thing,
or looks me over, as if pondering
what she might bear, or would she bear at all
her youngest getting tailored past recall.
Then Father, tennis done, attempts her poise,
although he knows the parents of the boys.
He’s in the kitchen, slicing up a pear;
the blade he’s gripping trembles in the air.
That night, the last commuter train bewails
the field the two are found in, near the rails.
I hear no bedtime story, other than
what’s left of them is rescued, buried in a van.
| Copyright © 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
I know I shouldn't be the first to comment on my own post, but I just have to say: look at that exquisite drawing. It could be a Renoir, and one of his best. Hats off to my co-contributor!
ReplyDeleteYes, very nice drawing.
DeleteEric, I struggle & procrastinate to draw my granddaughter (from photos) while Susan seems to be able to sit before any model (or photograph) and “knock out” something distinctive and economical in a sitting. But you know what? I’m determined to use her example as an inspiration and, starting tomorrow, do a drawing a day for a week.
DeleteAnd I think our new byline and poem title layout for this column is an excellent development!
Oh, and I wanted to ask, Eric. Ask you, but it now occurs to me that I could ask other readers: What do you make of the child’s “getting tailored past recall”? “Tailored”?
ReplyDeleteWhen the import of this poem comes home, at the very end, the images leap into focus. The knife, the pear, Mother looking over her own son. The meaning of the line Moristotle questions above-as in trimmed, cut, slashed beyond repair, beyond 'recall'. The loss of two little boys to drowning in our own neighborhood recently added a poignancy for me someone else might miss. As always excellent writing, and this one hit very close to home.
ReplyDeleteI left out the implications of the title-Passover indeed. When the children of the Israelites were NOT killed...
DeleteExcellent, Roger! If “tailored” could have connoted the cutting (of cloth) – I was thinking only of finished clothing – I, too, might have understood this poem. Eric will be much relieved that he had a better reader than me on this occasion!
Delete