Chagall Dreams
By Barbara Krasner
November 15, 2024
November 15, 2024
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My grandfather takes me by the hand
and we fly north over our town’s main street, past the library. “I want to read all the books,” I say. He says, “There’s time for that later. I have so much to show you.” But I want him to talk more than guide. I am no longer afraid of his age, his accent dredging up ancient phlegm from the Old Country. “I want to know the secrets,” I say. I squeeze his hand. “Tell me the secrets.” I had a dream once in Leningrad, my grandfather’s Russian soil. My grandfather showed me a mosaic with the number 534. May 1934? The year 534? An old lock combination? A street address? My grandmother, the one I never knew, takes my hand into hers. We fly through the war in Ukraine, over the gravel streets and thatched roofs of stucco homes. Frime, her goat, joins us in the sky. I tickle her beard and she bleats. Grandma says, “I have so much to show you.” I squeeze her hand. I say, “I want to know your secrets.” She smiles and points out where she was born, where she went to school. “I have no secrets,” she says. “Never did.” Except that she and Grandpa can glide through clouds. So can I, the wind whipping through our hair, our hands gripping tighter. |
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Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Gratz College. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Chicken Fat (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and Pounding Cobblestone (Kelsay Books, 2018). Her poetry has also appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Nimrod, Vine Leaves Literary, Tiferet, and other publications. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.
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Author’s Note:
I often write about family and family history. It has deepened my understanding about my heritage and brought me closer to ancestors I never met or barely knew, like my paternal grandparents. I have been researching my roots since 1990.