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Leah Zazulyer
Songs the Zazulya Sang
* Zazulya: Word for the European cuckoo bird in Old Polish, Old Ukranian,
with cognates in Lithuanian and Latvian.
Zazulyer: Yiddish for one who can imitate the Zazulya.
Contents
She
A Grand Canyon
Paper Dolls
Appraisal
in art
Horticulture
Inside Out
Giving Strength
Spathephyllum Patinii
Equation
Fear of Ice
Gell House Manifesto
The Nature of Things
Morning Walk
In Fall Fog
Strangely Enough
Hill Walking
Love Song to Mountains
Retreat
Recognized
II HOLLOW BONES SONGS
The Risk of Spring
Brushing My Hair
Convention
Lost
In Bavaria
For Ernst
Knowing
This Pure Creature:
Lockport Gasport Brockport, With Stops in . . .
Star of India
Like Wind and the Fog
Legend
Anatomy of a Storm
So Covered
In My Sunroom Flowers Bloom
Afternoon of Christmas Eve
We Were Talking About the Space Between
in my dream
Certain Violets
Gouged
Malone Lake
Let It Be Still
Glove
Irish Fire
About Divorce
Walking Rosey Hill Road
Wait For Me
III IN THE NEST OF THE TONGUE
Portrait of Mexico
The Truth of Your Dying Child Eats Away
About a Photo Taken in Cuernevaca. . .
The Rest of the Story
Quexquemitl
Bargain
Tres Estrellas d'Oro
IV CALLING THE SONG
Gedalye's Dictionary
Yiddish
Revision
Naming the Melon
Rare Bird
Visiting My Fifty Nine Year Old, Just Divorced . . .
V SONGLINES
A True Story
Poetry Reading
Several Years Later
Chinese Take Out
W R I T I N G: A Woman's Life
Alexander Street
Linda and Mary
A Frog on Wood Street
E-Mail
Translation
Lifting the Lid
Weibing, Bavaria
From the Book:
HILL WALKING
In Scotland nobody hikes
or mountain climbs.
They hill walk.
A mountain is a mere hill
if you walk it;
a man's life not insurmountable
if it's met step by mere step.
They teach it in school,
that fiercely quiet effort
at the exercise
of a limber mind.
For Jim
WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE SPACE BETWEEN
At work I ask
questions so phrased and timed
I think the answers answer
the questions I think I'm asking
until the answers question
the questions I'm asking
I think only I know I'm asking.
Sailors at work tacking
in the drift space between waves,
shores vanishing with each pitch.
Tomight you say you love me
and I tactfully question
what you mean by that.
GEDALYE'S DICTIONARY
My uncle didn't talk much
though he listened religiously.
Oh he might ask why
when there wasn't really an answer,
or half nod no
when second helpings were offered.
If he lifted his head
to look at you,
spoke your Biblical name,
and asked how you were,
you felt sanctified.
At work his sewing machine
did the humming, at home his wife;
by ninety-three his voice echoed
from inside a translucent shell.
He died quietly, in sleep.
In his old Harkevy* dictionary
that I inherited, every other page
was illuminated in a fine monk's script -
his new language,
his old language,
his inner language.
*First Yiddish-English Dictionary, publ. 1891.
Songs the Zazulya Sang is a 120 Page hand-stitched paper book with spine.
$18.00
To Order Songs the Zazulya Sang ON-LINE