POEM: Vilna Fairytale
Image by Getty Images
Over rooftops and forests, rivers, domes
and the belfries of Vilna, the magic carpet
in my mind flies to a small maze
of buildings where the ghettos used to be.
Near the river flats, and that green bridge
Milosz writes about in a poem — the bridge
where my mother was almost arrested
for being Jewish. Near those cobblestones
where she stepped from street to sidewalk,
carefully slipping off her star jacket
to walk free into the forests of her girlhood
filled with mushrooms and blueberries,
and the magic of hiding to emerge transformed:
peasant princess with a golden cross at her throat,
an amulet of Catholic prayers, a spell and curse:
first to live, then live on with memories
of black forests and the frozen Neris River that runs
in incomplete silence through our Vilna. Every time
someone asks if I’m a Jew, I hold my breath.
Helen Mitsios is a Professor of Languages and Literature at Touro College in New York City.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
