ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry. His recent translations from Yiddish include Blessed Hands: Stories by Frume Halpern (2023). You can visit his website at https://yataubdotnet.wordpress.com.

Flaneur of the Fields

Thus, I bent over a suitcase excavated from the thrift shop

a few blocks down from the Graham Avenue stop

one with snaps and milky cappuccino exterior and mustiness within

that might once have set sail to 

Dubrovnik or Marseilles or Andorra

only there were no stickers on the outside only their outlines

so I was left to speculate on the scrimping so long for getaways

for visas on vistas beheld and remembered

in search of an ensemble

suitable for celebrating this farmland now fallow

recovering as I myself so yearned to do

for walking the hills rolling gently

past these venerable plate-glass windows

without discernible trails of any kind

but replete with rocks 

and twists and dips unforeseen

one to cloak this form in middle age’s twilight 

with its newfound bulges and deflations

something practical and if not outrageous then sassy

that would not emphasize but also would not conceal

gray turtleneck black flannels below

knitted black cardigan topped by orange scarf

yes sure 

for orange is the new old goes with gray

and what need 

had I now

of tendrils of smoke

and declamation

and Dadaist

happening

in absinthe-filled

café  

and I did walk out to the back porch and the mare and her foal

so exuberant fresh to the world stood in the distance

but the feral cat came close curious about 

and dare I say admiring of my sartorial splendor

and spread her scent glands across the bottoms of my flannels

marking me as hers and I buried my face in her streaked fur

in the generous rumbling that was Lucy

so grateful was I for her understanding and ownership

and with her encouragement

I ventured beyond the farmyard and into the fields

with their heavens and pines and grasses and rolls of hay

as inscrutable purveyors of my solo runway show

that was without applause

the feral cat having departed the audience 

my insistence on the possibility of 

fashion without other eyes probing in assessment

and I was grateful for having arrived

at this moment of

if not recovery 

then rest

and I knew that I would

somehow 

some way

go on

toward the bounty of the shade tree

extended along the horizon 

whose long fingers 

with their

trilling

tickling 

fondling

whispering of light 

would lead me

fortified by my shabby suitcase 

bulging with signifiers of dapperdom and determination

and by the residue from Lucy’s whiskers

deeper into the fields whose very green

would camouflage then dim however briefly 

the unacknowledged abyss the green gleam 

of my grief