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POETRY
COMFORT IN THE CATSKILLS
I don't know what it is about me and the Catskills,
But whenever I drive north on Rt. 17
into Sullivan County, Monticello, South Fallsburg,
I feel comfort here.
There's something about the stucco facade of an old hotel,
Even if the shutters are swinging off the hooks,
Window paint peeling, glass shattered,
The wooden porches sagging,
I'm always brought back to a pine-paneled kitchen
Crowded with chattering mothers,
The air stuffed with tangy cooking smells,
I'm holding a tin pail filled with just-picked blueberries,
Purple juice stains the corners of my mouth,
I know in a few short hours
My father will arrive from the city
for a weekend in the mountains,
For dinner we'll eat cold cherry soup
fresh-killed chicken, carrot tsimis
and chilled melon slices for dessert,
On Saturday we'll swim in the lake
with the spongy sand bottom and sharp rocks,
My father will hoist me onto his strong shoulders,
We'll wade deep into dark green water
unsure of the depth and sudden drops,
But at that moment I will feel safe in his grasp
not thinking about the day in the future
when his grip is no longer
the measure of my safety.
~Norma Ketzis Bernstock
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PHOTOGRAPH ON THE LAWN AT FIALKOFF'S BUNGALOW COLONY, MONTICELLO NY, 1950
The three of us pose
on a statue of a deer,
a balck and white photo
even though Catskill summers
were green stained knees
and blue berry-picking fingers,
a "Father Knows Best"
kind of scene
as unreal as the TV show
Those fleeting days
when my older sister
soothed my sunburned shoulders
but let me pull dead skin
flaking from her brown back.
And my brother,
three years my senior,
not teasing yet
or throwing darts
at my dolls like he'd do
in a few year's time,
A constant companion,
pinkg-pong partner,
those mosquito-bitten
Catskill summers.
And me, the youngest
so innocent and smiling,
Squeezed in close,
Thrilled to be on the deer,
I grab at its muscular neck,
Peeling, painted plaster,
A perfect illusion of strength
and family ties.
~Norma Ketzis Bernstock
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INVENTING THE TRUTH
My brother and I remmeber things differently,
Like the summers in the Catskills
and teh tiny eggs from the poultry farm,
a surprise for us in our Friday night soup.
My brother remembers the headless chicken at the poultry farm
flopping about in a spasmodic fit,
He swears my mother wrung their skinny necks
before the bloody slaughter.
I remember the starry, cicada nights just before sleep,
The comforting sounds of familiar voices
drifting up from the country porch.
He still feels the sting of my father's slap
"A test," he said, to see if we were faking sleep,
And I remember the night my brother's fever soared,
the doctor's second visit,
joking that he left the needle in,
My brother cringes from the pain
of two injections piercing skin.
~Norma Ketzis Bernstock
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