Visit
Seventeen years in your house
makes it strange to have you
in mine, heels of your fine
polished shoes clattering
against my New England floors.
I want so badly to please you
that the countertops ache
from repeated scrubbing.
Fresh flowers on every table,
water in the carafe by the bed.
By tomorrow we’ll argue
politics again, each stunned
by the unconsidered policies
the other promotes, but
let me enjoy today to its fullest.
I marvel that you are with me.
Your aftershave and your cigar smoke,
they comfort me. Surely
your voice will be with me
all of the days of my life.
By Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi
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Qarrtsiluni (2005-2013) was a groundbreaking online literary magazine, one of the first to fully exploit blog software. Though we never quite realized our dream of creating a print-on-demand option for each issue, being online does mean that our back issues remain accessible indefinitely, so there's that. And we published some damn fine stuff — check it out.
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I love that last stanza.
This made me cry, especially the last stanza. Thanks, Rachel.
Beautifully evocative! I am moved…
Oh Rachel. Oh. This is wonderful. And yes, the last stanza. Oh. (forgive my incoherence. It’s the highest form of flattery. One of them, anyway).
Oh. Yes.
(o)
Wow.
Oh, wow.
The timing of this post is remarkable, editors; my father is coming to the Berkshires tomorrow, for his annual visit to my house. It was after just such a visit that this poem was drafted…
Thanks for the kind words, all.
This reminds me of my relationship with my own father. In the end, it is not the differences that matter; it’s the aftershave and cigar smoke, the comfort of the voice that trails you everywhere.
Beautiful, Rachel.
Very affecting. My favorite kinds of poems are always those that allow me to taste and see through another’s senses – radical empathy. This one gave me a very clear sense of what it might be like to have a parent with whom one had strong philosophical disagreements, something I’ve never experienced. Thanks.
This brought me to tears, too. Thank you.
More tears here. Wow.
… and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Just wonderful, tears in my eyes.
Rachel – Wonderful. And I hope your visit goes as well.
(o)
astonishing.