Miriam Feder

The great hall at Ellis Island echoes with ghosts. They mutter, roar, cry and sometimes they even laugh in multilingual cacophony. Listen for the frightened whispers and halting speech in the examining rooms. Taunts and whispers slide through empty hallways of red brick school houses. Ancient songs and rhymes pop out of bureau drawers or cackle in the whoosh of a campfire.

Voices trapped in air currents swipe my ear, my memory and my imagination. They brush my eyes or my nostrils, and suddenly, the indelible media of song and spirit rush out. I feel the trials and joys, the courage and fears recorded there. The more these voices catch me, the more I crave their stories. I don‘t think this is mere longing for a tender time past. Rather, it‘s time-trained listening joined to a jagged sort of hearing—-pressed deep into the quick in some dark amino acid.

The stories transcend time and technology. I listen to the wind for epics that blow across plains. I touch the earth and feel the hoof beats of settlers. I soak in the river that bathes the heron and native bones.

Fondling tea cups stained with gossip and advice, I hear shuffles, accents and laughter of women I know, yet I’ve never met. Thumb-prints entice; are they mothers, maids or visionaries that twist canvas, stitches, stone, and glaze into beauty? The dust of Moses, Beethoven, and my grandfathers showers me with gifts. Ancient brothers sacrifice goats while sisters raise timbrels and dance in the deserts. My imagination dazzles.

Sometimes they weigh me down, the promises duty binds upon me and the gifts I can never repay. Those days, I am haunted by history, especially the dreams stolen from young dreamers. I cannot avoid the stench of camps where emptiness crushes the spirits of millions in the machinery of fear. I feel wooden and unworthy.

Other times these bygone days tingle in my nostrils and lift my wings. They charge the hair on my neck and drive the balls of my feet into ground. My pliers easily bend the next link of chain. I fill the song with my voice. My chest heats with wonder and the future shines, illumined by the past.

hear Backlighting