Honey and Brine
Excerpts from the Poetry of Barbara Kaplan
RECOLLECTIONS
This Too Was A Supper
Seated at the table, in the midst of a table of talkers,
wildly gesticulating and hurriedly eating, she sat—
listening. Her face tranquil, compassionate, like a flower
in bloom and exuding the scent of rose water.They were conversing in English and she spoke only
Greek, French and Italian.Looking at her, Calliope said to her in Greek, “You are
very beautiful Katina.” Softly she replied, “That is
because I was very much loved.”She could say that! She who had spent four years in
Auschwitz; who had married after returning to Greece
only to have her husband kidnapped and imprisoned in
Albania for ten years—before he was returned to her.She could say that?
To me she was Mary, as she must have looked when her
son was Resurrected.
MEMORIES
My Brother—1944
I first learned,
seeing your name
in a newspaper.
Was it possible?
We were at war, yes,
but in a newspaper?
At 22—?
Could it be you?Then it came.
Dear So and So—
Your brother—
Was it true then
what it said in the paper?
No—No—
He was too young.
Only 22—
No—it couldn’t be you.I would know by a sign
if it were true what they said—
The sun would not rise
if you were dead.They were wrong—
It was a mistake—
We were winning—
It couldn’t be—Oh, stop this agony.I watched, waited,
Slowly it was dawning.
Stop the Sun! It cannot rise!
The earth must be cloaked in mourning.
REALITIES
And Never Do I Find Him
I watch as she walks—
slowly,
feeling under every seat,
searching for something.“Can I be of help?”
I ask.
“No” she says,
“I know I put him down here—
somewhere.
I’ve been searching for him
for years and years
and never do I find him.“He’s so small my son,
so small.
I could rock him to sleep in my hand.”
OBSERVATIONS
Voices
A Chinese Grandmother
Do not unwind the bindings from my feet.
They are one with my flesh,
custom and time have wedded us.
Then we believed them—
to be bound to one’s home
was to be beautiful.A Padaung Mother
At five they pressed my collar bones
and placed the first gold ring.
Now I have twenty such.
My husband is proud
of my long, thin neck
and my weak, soft feminine voice.
If I displease him
he can cut the rings
to let me die
of suffocation.A Mbale Adolescent Girl
Wet with fear, my head bowed
I moaned and rocked and shook
with the cries and terror
that escaped the hut
where my people’s custom
was honored.
First it was the tsunga’s knife.
Then they sewed me with sticks and thorns
and cooled the pain with mud,
completing my mutilation.
Conception, birth, menses, walking
are the torture
we of the shuffling gait
share.A California Woman
With my lipo-suctioned thighs
and body tucks,
my slit and slashed cheeks and eyes
and siliconed breasts
I, too, am enslaved by beauty
even here, even now.
MENTAL WANDERINGS
Plato
Plato you’re a knucklehead!
Whoever taught you life was led
in some confinéd purity—
and love could be ‘tween man and maid
some ethereal mating in the head.Oh Plato! Fool!
Misguided misanthrope!
What mischievous minx you hide,
when teaching one may reside
in sectioned part—here on this earth
and then above in some love tryst.You know you lied.
And there you sit,
a smirk of satisfaction
flits across your face
to watch the writhings
of these earthly souls
seeking some solace
from the infernos
you have traced.
Barbara Hade Kaplan was born in 1917 in Harlem, New York City. She is the mother of three children and grandmother of two. She began her college education in 1957 at the age of 40 at East Los Angeles College where she was introduced to poetry and began writing. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at UCLA. By 1967 she earned a Master’s degree in Social Work from UCLA. Following a stint with Jewish Family Services, she conceptualized and directed a revolutionary model of services for older people that resulted in the Freda Mohr Center, a dynamic service center in the heart of Los Angeles. By 1973 she earned a doctoral degree in Gerontology at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work. She retired in 1987 to devote full time to writing. This is her first published volume.
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