This is Poetry Moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and retired professor of English and creative writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
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Welcome to Poetry Moment.
Today’s poem, “Yom Kippur Aubade, with CPAP” by Kathryn Hellerstein, moves seamlessly between calm and worry, sleep and wakefulness, and the spiritual and physical worlds. Yom Kippur—the day of atonement and the most holy of Jewish holidays—begins this year at sunset on October 11th and continues past nightfall on October 12th. A time of prayer, fasting, repentance, and forgiveness, Yom Kippur concludes the 10 Days of Awe that follow Rosh Hashanah. Kathryn Hellerstein’s “Yom Kippur Aubade, with CPAP” is a love poem for both spouse and tradition.
Kathryn Hellerstein (shine) teaches Yiddish literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish, 1586-1987, which won several prizes, as well as collections of translations—Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky and Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, In New York: A Selection. Her poems have appeared in The Drunken Boat, Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, Modern Language Studies, Prairie Schooner, Bridges, Cleaver, Jewish Currents, and Nashim, among others.
An aubade, French for “dawn serenade,” refers to a song or poem welcoming the morning. Originally, the word commemorated the parting of lovers at dawn. In “Yom Kippur Aubade, with CPAP,” Kathryn Hellerstein adjusts the backdrop. The speaker is not a troubadour. It is the early morning of Yom Kippur. The poet’s husband, hooked up to a CPAP machine, lies asleep beside her.
Here’s Yom Kippur Aubade, with CPAP by Kathryn Hellerstein
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The fast wakes me up at 4 AM,
And I hear it all
In the rush of worry
That darkness and hunger bring
As you sleep next to me,
Your CPAP keeping oxygen
Moving evenly in-and-out.
In the dark, I count my sins
To the whoosh of your machine.
A car passing on the street
Beneath our window, the air-conditioner
Turning on, a plane overhead
All join into a chorus
Of equal noises,
Compressing far and near, great and small,
Until your intimate breath
Blowing over me like a cool breeze
From the world to come
Lulls me back to sleep.
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That was “Yom Kippur Aubade, with CPAP” by Kathryn Hellerstein. Thanks for listening.
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Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
