It’s as if I’m in a field thick with mist,
Distant and out of touch with myself, unmoved.
I spend weeks in the same place, unloving, unloved,
Cut off from my past.

We’re strangers to ourselves. One afternoon
I heard my mother talking about my name
(The name I was born with, my given name),
Edward Rubenstein,

And it seemed so far away from me and removed,
Like a distant cousin from my mother’s past.
It belongs to someone who no longer exists,
If he ever did.

Sometimes my childhood is like a vaguely
Familiar country. I recognize the names,
But I don’t understand the language, the customs,
Or the currency.

And then one morning I’m restored to myself.
I wake up to the memory of my grandmother’s
Rumbling chuckle or high-pitched yowl of laughter,
And the mist burns off.

I’m dancing with my grandfather on the stairs.
We’re romping across newly-carpeted floors.
We’re rolling in a field of wildflowers
Awash with colors.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 6 Number 3, on page 42
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/1987/11/out-of-the-past-5921