A
BROOKLYN TALE
by Dr. Mel Waldman
An
oxygen tank stood majestically by her side,
like
a centurion or a Praetorian Guard watching over
Mother.
I
left my little room, my sanctuary at the other
end of our home,
overlooking
Ocean Avenue in Old Brooklyn
&
rushing slowly around the bend,
I
joined Father & my sister in Mother’s Room.
She
lay in bed.
We
gathered around her.
Smiling
weakly,
she
lost her breath,
lost
consciousness too,
her
gold eyes staring blankly at us from a faraway place.
But
she awakened,
resurrected
from the other side,
the
home of the dying & the dead,
&
magically, Mother rose suddenly, & cried
out:
“I
thought I was dying!”
She
inhaled her last breath, dropped into
non-being,
&
crossed the invisible boundary,
deep
into the nothingness humans often fear,
gone
forever,
Yesterday,
more than half-a-century ago,
a
timeless crack in eternity
captured
by a young man’s Mind’s Eye,
keeping
Mother alive, while saying goodbye.
I
often think of her & feel her love &
mine for her
&
recall her absolute faith in me,
a
celestial force still feeding my sacred
omphalos,
&
feasting gloriously on hope.
How
beautiful, unfathomable, & eerie this
miracle of life!
How
sad, poignant, & transformational too!
I sometimes wonder
if
our fragile transience/mortality is a gift with
hidden meaning,
if
only we find or create it.
Dr.
Mel
Waldman is a psychologist, poet, and writer whose stories have appeared in
numerous magazines including HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, PULP
METAL MAGAZINE, and AUDIENCE. His poems have been widely published in magazines
and books including A NEW ULSTER, CLOCKWISE CAT, CRAB FAT LITERARY MAGAZINE,
ESKIMO PIE, INDIANA VOICE JOURNAL, LIQUID IMAGINATION, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY
REVIEW, BRICKPLIGHT, SKIVE MAGAZINE, ODDBALL MAGAZINE, PABLO LENNIS, POETRY
PACIFIC, POETICA, RED FEZ, SQUAWK BACK, SWEET ANNIE & SWEET PEA REVIEW, THE
JEWISH LITERARY JOURNAL, THE JEWISH PRESS, THE JERUSALEM POST, HOTMETAL PRESS,
MAD SWIRL, HAGGARD & HALLOO, ASCENT ASPIRATIONS, YELLOW MAMA, THE BITCHIN’
KITSCH, SOUL-LIT, TWO DROPS OF INK, and NAMASTE FIJI: THE INTERNATIONAL
ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY. A past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in
Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature and is the
author of 11 books.
