Ruth Holzer

Bamboo

In the gentle evening air, the bamboo is stirring.

It is not streaming like the tawny manes of warhorses flowing over the steppe, nor like the scarlet banners of their riders.

It is not rippling like a pond brushed with breeze, nor thrashing like the famished North Sea in February.

It is not fluttering like the corps de ballet, nor waving like a crowd on the pier as a great ship eases out of the harbor.

In lengthening shadows, the bamboo is moving like bamboo.

Ruth Holzer

Guests

Surprise: a late night knocking at the door. It’s my parents, all dressed up for traveling, Father with his fedora. They’re looking well, and younger than before. May we come in? I step aside. Though glad to see them, I wonder what has brought them here. Is something wrong? But no: Since you no longer come to visit us, we thought we’d better visit you. The trip was long, and now we’re tired. We need to rest a while. I point them toward the guest room, make yourselves at home, then follow with a quiet broom, cleaning up the clay they’ve trailed behind.

Ruth Holzer

Athenian Holiday

Heat, toxic smog and mobs of tourists and refugees— the city, as always, lives up to its reputation.

Mornings in godforsaken shrines whitened by time’s slow bleach. Inscriptions treading back and forth: oxen plowing a field.

Museums in blazing afternoons, a surfeit of vases and weapons marking the ages of mankind: stone, bronze, iron.

Nights in that modest hotel on Bouboulinas Street where the ghosts of the tortured still wander, wordless.

Ruth Holzer