This is Poetry Moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is the annual Day of Atonement. This year, it began at sundown on Sunday, September 20. According to poet Robin Becker, "On Yom Kippur, each individual asks God that she be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year." In her poem "Yom Kippur, Taos, New Mexico," Becker wonders if "her name and her [estranged] partner's names will 'be inscribed'...."
Born in Philadelphia and raised in its suburbs, Robin Becker attended a Quaker school. She attributes her creativity and humanistic outlook to her Jewish family and her Quaker education. She taught at Penn State University from 1994-2018 and published six books of poetry with the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her 2026 collection, "Midsummer Count: New and Selected Poems," is available from the University of New Mexico Press.
Concerning today's poem, Becker explains, "The natural beauty of the Southwest. . . evoke[s]. . . a spiritual dimension. . . . [In addition,] the speaker's Yom Kippur meditation returns her to a memory of her father."
Here’s "Yom Kippur, Taos, New Mexico" by Robin Becker
Yom Kippur, Taos, New Mexico
I’ve expanded like the swollen door in summer
to fit my own dimension. Your loneliness
is a letter I read and put away, a daily reminder
in the cry of the magpie that I am
still capable of inflicting pain
at this distance.
Like a painting, our talk is dense with description,
half-truths, landscapes, phrases layered
with a patina over time. When she came into my life
I didn’t hesitate.
Or is that only how it seems now, looking back?
Or is that only how you accuse me, looking back?
Long ago, this desert was an inland sea. In the mountains
you can still find shells.
It’s these strange divagations I’ve come to love: midday sun
on pink escarpments; dusk on gray sandstone;
toe-and-finger holes along the three hundred and fifty-seven foot
climb to Acoma Pueblo, where the spirit
of the dead hovers about its earthly home
four days, before the prayer sticks drive it away.
Today all good Jews collect their crimes like old clothes
to be washed and given to the poor.
I remember how my father held his father around the shoulders
as they walked to the old synagogue in Philadelphia.
"We're almost there, Pop," he said. "A few more blocks."
I want to tell you that we, too, are almost there,
for someone has mapped this autumn field with meaning, and any day
October brooding in me, will open to reveal
our names—inscribed or absent —
among the dry thistles and spent weeds.
Copyright Credit: “Yom Kippur, Taos, New Mexico” from All-American Girl by Robin Becker © 1996.
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox, Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You'll find more episodes at https://radio.wpsu.org/show/poetry-moment
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
