Several Poems of Celia Dropkin

This is a very passionate poetess who wrote in Yiddish, during the 1920s and 1930s. Her first book, from where these poems come, is called The Acrobat. She was married with four children, but inside her lurked the understandings of women. She was way ahead of her time.

My Ship

My ship has weathered many storms: a

mere boy like you can’t break my heart.

Don’t be surprised to find me laughing

and lively the day after you say you don’t

love me any more.

My ship will shake all night on high waves.

It will groan like a sick child. It will bend

to the side like an old woman. But in the

morning, it will right itself and sail, silent

on the blue surface.

My Mother

My mother, 
left a twenty-two-year old
widow with two small kids--
modestly resolved
to become No One's wife.
Her days and years quietly drew on
like a thin candle burning.
My mother became No One's wife,
but all of the days and years and nights
and tenderness, from her longing blood--
I sucked them in deep and soaked them up
into my adolescent heart.
So my mother's concealed hot ache
rushed, as from an underground spring,
freely in me. And now her holy,
latent lust, spurts frankly from me.

He and She

He is a branch;
she--the green leaves on the branch.
From him to her flows
dark power, thick fertile sap.
She shudders with each touch of wind,
whispers and laughs
turns the silver
of delighted eyes.
He is simple, mute.
Autumn dyes her deep
colors. The cold wind cruelly
exiles her from the branch,
while he remains the same, simple,
robust, mute.