by Miriam Bassuk (Seattle, WA)
Compassionate Listening Training
between Germans and Jewish Americans
Lebensgarten – September 27 through October 7, 2002
Attic room full of light,
the Lord’s prayer written
in careful German letters
on the back wall.
Vater unser im Himmel
Lebensgarten, once a munitions
factory, now a community
devoted to peace.
Our circle is thirty-five strong,
half Germans, half Jews. We
hold hands, pass the peace feather
to speak what is most alive in us.
Sounds of German translated to English,
English to German. Make space for
the wound, now layered by several
generations, a curse that wants to be
forgotten, yet keeps leaking out.
Together we move, the first grief cry,
afraid for so long to release it.
Hold me sister, hold me
brother. Embrace the child in me
who still can’t understand.
Miriam Bassuk’s poems have appeared in Snapdragon, Between the Lines, PoetsWest Literary Journal, and 3 Elements Review. She was one of the featured poets in WA 129, a project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate. As an avid poet, she has been charting the journey of living in these uncertain times beyond Covid.
The Jewish Writing Project 
Hi Bruce,
Many thanks, Miriam
>
So moving.