May 2024
Roseanne Freed
roseanne.freed@gmail.com
roseanne.freed@gmail.com
Bio Note: During the dozen years I worked at the J. Paul Getty Museum I had some interesting encounters with tourists from all over the world. I wrote the poem about the Ukraine war two years ago, and I’m so sad that nothing has changed.
Monet at The Getty
On our way to the coffee cart Edith noticed an older couple looking at a map of the Museum. Where do you want to go? she said. They didn’t understand. She gestured to the map— Impressionist paintings? That’s all most tourists want to see. The man understood when she shortened her question to Van Gogh…? Monet…? He pointed to the five-dollar bill for her espresso, and gave her a matching one. You don’t need to tip us for giving directions, Edith handed back the money. But they wouldn’t take it, and were backing away from us. Frustrated and sorry she’d started this— we only get a fifteen-minute break, and still had to wait in the line, she tried again, speaking slowly, P-a-i-n-t-i-n-g-s by M-o-n-e-t …? When she said it so carefully we realized they’d heard ‘money’, and assumed in America anyone could say, ‘Give me money!’ We laughed, tears running down our cheeks, which convinced the terrified tourists Americans were also insane. They fled.
“In the middle of war, he’s asking for poems”
—Ilya Kaminsky. New York Times. March 13, 2022 Images on TV— women birthing babies in unheated basements. In the dark. a dog howling next to its family lying dead in the street. fathers waving to their wives & kids departing in the trains. Ukrainian is a beautiful language. What form of goodbye do the families use at the train stations? Pa-pa? Bye-bye Chao kakao See you later, alligator? Or proshchaj? Goodbye forever. Your head aches. If not for the courage of your great-grandparents, who sent their three children far away from the pogroms in Odessa, you’d also be running for your life. You go for a walk. Two men chat at a hip-high picket fence next to a garden filled with citrus, rose & jasmine. As you approach, a large dog snarls, shows his teeth and jumps to attack you from the other side of the low fence. Yelping in surprise you trip and fall. He likes you, says the man in the yard.
Originally published in Lothlorian Poetry Journal
©2024 Roseanne Freed
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