December 2014
Gail Fishman Gerwin
gail@chayacairnpress.com
My husband Ken and I have two daughters and are the grandparents of three boys and a girl. My memoir Sugar and Sand was a 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize finalist and my second collection Dear Kinfolk, (www.chayacairnpress.com) earned a 2013 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. My fiction and poetry have been published in varied print and online journals, and I’ve written plays that have been staged in theatres and private homes. I enjoy facilitating poetry workshops and am associate poetry editor of Tiferet. 
Author's note:  Several years ago, I connected via Skype with my cousin, Hadassa Scheyer Zusman.   Her grandmother, a Holocaust victim, was my mother’s oldest sister Frieda. Hadassa was born in Koźmin, Poland, and now lives in Netanya, Israel—in an apartment filled with her art. She and her husband Yacob have three sons and six grandchildren. Soon after we became cyber-cousins, she began to email her art to me; the images she creates take the form of JPEG files. My response was to give a voice to these images by writing poems based on them. Despite a harrowing early childhood—wandering through Europe with her mother after escaping from a ghetto during the Holocaust—her current work shows a zest for her country, a love for the sea she views from her apartment window, and an appreciation of everyday events, emotions, and memories. I am so grateful that technology has allowed us to share our lives and our crafts. 
My cousin Hadassa, her mother (pregnant), her father, and 
my Aunt Frieda in Poland on Hadassa's first birthday.

S E V E N   P O E M S
based on the art of my cousin
H A D A S S A   Z U S M A N
Love in Geary
Twined together in
A dream worth its golden weight
Two should live as one
Sitting Near the Sea
Salted by the surf
Specks of bread for dancing birds
Is peace so far behind?




My Doctors
I see their brain cells
Through the fog of discussion
Cure me, heal me now
Beautiful Butterfly
Come to me, sun rays
Lighten air, soar with the breeze
Rest atop my nose
Here      
It’s here that we sit
It’s here we find each other
Here: you touch my soul
The Snow at My Window
February
Silent snowflakes hide our view
Tomorrow we’ll see sun 




Happy Day
Rejoice, we are alive
See? Our loved ones call our names
Come, let’s dance, let’s sing
Hadassa Scheyer Zusman, October 2014


©2014 Gail Fishman Gerwin