Winter 2011
Elli Hazit
The ravens
scatter in the snow
fly back up to the bare branches overhead
Black on white
against an overcast sky
Winter sprawled out over the vast fields
Green gone
Light scarce
Warmth withheld
A shelter
A gathering place
for considered reflection
is sought out
The phrases are concentrated
like parcels
Carried to become less specific
Richer for the telling
Or forgotten, like a verse
The tune unwinds
Wind swirls sparkles of ice
into my eyes
____________________
Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.
Education
Elli Hazit
Your answers bewilder me
I’ve forgotten the method
and I am far too old for relearning
these equations, properties
Rules to live by
Advice cascades over the modern day
There’s a way to be better at everything
Better at living
Better at dying
Forgetting the role of chance and
leaving days unnamed,
unburdened by definition
In the throes of real pain
the moment renders itself, by itself
An existence
that will flame out
Comfort exacts desire, leisure,
the luxury of the first world
Every corner holds secrets
that are irrelevant
Or hard fought knowledge
gathered in quiet desk days
Half-remembered facts, connections,
imagined situations
History repeats itself, it’s said
Man-made, why not?
Can this be a soul
that crawled out?
Warmed, lighted, fed, and launched
into the fray, the forest, the field
Distinct from the meal
first served, then made
No rewinding, only memory
complicated, cheap memory
to bolster the feel of experience
____________________
Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.
The Haves
Elli Hazit
They teach from an abundance of books
They have analyzed the warp and the weave
of how best to convey—Words
We’ve dissected, again,
the best method
for reinvention
No one will articulate the obvious:
The random gifts,
the essential inequalities
that life doles out
Maestros and laggards,
Chanteuses,
Those who pick up
and those who concentrate on
the specifics
How it might rain
Injustice will prevail
as time wears down
the most energetic
The differences seem as marked
as ever, but distance makes
a buffer from the tears
Heartbreaks are of another sort here
where water flows freely
we see images, read and bemoan
sporadically
their extreme need,
our extreme luxury
Muster sympathy
Jump into the pool
to cool off
Fly, fly anywhere, but somewhere nice—
Some place full of exotic plants,
and beaches
to rest from our heavy labors
while night falls on an exposed plain
of hunger—there
Back in the stacks
the millions of books
beg to be read,
are preserved, cherished, catalogued
The course of human history
that begat this.
____________________
Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.
Snow Melt
Elli Hazit
This was my story
I didn’t mean for it
to get away from me
To get out of hand
I watched alone
as the snow melted
to become pitiful heaps of dirty ice
Retreating before the sun
As we turned back closer to its heat
I told myself to hold on
until Spring and then, when it finally arrived,
I couldn’t believe my eyes
One Sunday in March
I stayed in my room all day
waiting for the last piles of snow to vanish
Peeking from behind the blinds
from time to time to check
as they shriveled to nothing
Superstitious
When they vanished I’d be able
to move
to move on
They’ll be no more pieces to pick up
or push from the path
After carrying its weight all this long winter
I will be able to feel the thaw
Inside me, inside the ground
I’ve become
sick and tired of leafless trees
straw colored grass
Though I will contrive
this final symbol from the snow
Remnants that I notice
Whatever the pain is like
the pain we say we quick forget
What the pale pink faded scar cannot recount
is remembered
making faith less hardy
stirring, still, an uneasy bile
These new leaves are suspect, too
I can’t trust them to endure
Their frothy blinding green and lush demeanor
might not last
Might not survive
the winter
____________________
Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.
Eleven Poems: An Audio Chapbook
Elli Hazit
I. Battle
II. Winter 2011
III. Snow Melt
IV. Ruby’s World
V. A.M.
VI. Education
VII. The Haves
VIII. Mall Rats and Their Grandmothers
IX. Analogies
X. Like A Name
XI. For the Parade
____________________
Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.
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