Inheritance
Words and Music by Anna Epstein-Kravis © 1988 Baby Rose Music ASCAP

Father, what you left, I kept, against my will, it seems.
You left your fears, unspoken hopes, your doubts and broken dreams.
Father, what you left, I kept, for all the world to see,
A tangled web that bound us both, and wound its way round me.
But, still, you brushed my tears away, each night my soul to keep
All safe and sound away from harm, your little girl would sleep.
As I reached young womanhood, such battles did we see.
You feared your mother, I believe, and took it out on me.
Ah well, no need to analyze love’s strange and magic needs,
Or why I lived half of my life driven to my knees.
For laughter in the falling leaves, a weekend’s tumbling joys,
I raced to catch your forward pass, and wished I were a boy…
Later, as I came to be a singer for the crowds,
I wished I were a bank teller, which might have made you proud.
Ah well, no point to analyze love’s strange and magic ways,
Or why with men I chanced to meet I prayed to find some grace.
Here’s to ways I tried to please, impossible it was.
And then, the day I understood something about love.
I toast us both for we were us, imperfect, yes God knows.
I’ve come to see my father’s fears, and exorcise his ghost.
Father, some things I have kept, and some I have let go,
And so I’m free to let you be the father I love so.
Father, it’s your love I’ve kept, I understand, you see,
That you were filled with loves and doubts, and quite a bit like me.
Ah well, no point to analyze life’s childhood memories,
For I have found a man to love. Together we’ve found peace.
Father, I can thank you now. You’d love my husband, too.
You’d be so proud for him and me. Our boy looks just like you.
He looks so much like you.

BUG A BOO TO YOU
by Jacqueline Neus, Fresh Meadows

I’m special
but, who knows it?
They’re 20,000 different
forms of me
one of life’s most
successful species.
Did you know I can carry
more than my own weight?
Am organized
probably more than you,
building my home from
little mounds of dirt and sand.
Sometimes I use sticks
making a stronger mound
to shield me from rain.
I build tunnels so deep
to hibernate in winter.
I’m a social creature
living in groups, in harmony.
Can you make such a statement?
Like you, I have a nervous
system, heart, head and blood.
I use my antennae to express
myself.
Next time you see
one of my kind,
think twice
it’s not all right
to snuff out my life.
Put your foot down
on beliefs, convictions,
not on tiny me.
I’m just an ant
and want to live too.

The Virtues of a Short Poem
by Barbara Novack, Laurelton

The virtues of a short poem
appear
in its rainwashed clarity.

Feeding Time
By Karen Ethelsdattar, Union City, NJ

Perhaps
we, like our cats,
are so eager to be fed
by the universe
that when we hear the cosmic can-opener
we jump around so much
we get in the way
of the one who would feed us.