for my mother & her ancestor, Akiba  

Wherever I walked I went green among young growing
Along the same song, Mother, even along this grass
Where, Mother, tombstones stand each in its pail of shade
In Trinity yard where you at lunchtime came
As a young workingwoman, Mother, bunches of your days, grapes
Pressing your life into mine, Mother,
And I never cared for these tombs and graves
But they are your book-keeper hours.

You said to me summers later, deep in your shiniest car
As a different woman, Mother, and I your poem-making daughter—
“Each evening after I worked all day for the lock-people
“I wished under a green sky on the young evening star—
“What did I wish for?” What did you wish for Mother?
“I wished for a man, of course, anywhere in my world.
“And there was Trinity graveyard and the tall New York steeples.”

Wherever I go, Mother, I stay away from graves
But they turn everywhere in the turning world; now,
Mother Rachel’s, on the road from Jerusalem.
And mine is somewhere turning unprepared
In the earth or among the whirling air.
My workingwoman mother is saying to me, Girl—
Years before her rich needy unreal  years—
Whatever work you do, always make sure
You can go walking, not like me, shut in your hours.

Mother I walk, going even here in green Galilee
Where our ancestor, Akiba, resisted Rome,
Singing forever for the Song of Songs
Even in torture knowing.   Mother, I walk,, this blue,
The Sea, Mother, this hillside, to his great white stone.
And again here in New York later I come alone
To you, Mother, I walk, making our poems.