AUNT MILLY’S EYES
(Upon visiting my 96-year-old aunt in Revivim, Israel)
As if trapped in the headlights
of a fast approaching car
the eyes of my aunt
first strike me as fearful,
then hurt with a hint of anger:
how dare you, the living, let me get so old?
The sun’s angle on the red
and gold stripes of her camelhair rug
shifts so slowly it seems to remain the same
like my aunt herself, a small sculpted figure
in the same chair, day after day,
opening and closing a book
she says with a laugh that
she’s read many times.
I admire the Brooklyn night- scene
on the opposite wall
for which she’d won first prize
in a city-wide contest, 1929.
Oh that? But it’s so dark. . .
My life is over, there’s
nothing more I want,
yet I don’t want to die,
her voice rising
but not the least defiant.
The bus is almost here, time
for one last glance, her eyes
now sage-green as the eyes
of ancient statues, their gems
long ago gone, but the eyes wide-open,
serene as a Rembrandt portrait.