Ellen Bass

Deceiving the Gods

The old Jews rarely admitted good fortune.

And if they did, they’d quickly add kinehora—

let the evil eye not hear. What dummkopf

would think the spirits were on our side?

But even in a tropical paradise, laden

with sugar cane and coconut,

something like the shtetl’s wariness exists.

In Hawaii, I’m told, a fisherman

never spoke directly lest the gods

would arrive at the sea before him.

Instead he’d look to the sky,

the muscular clouds, and say,

I wonder if the leaves are falling in the uplands!

Let us go and gather leaves.

So, my love, today let’s not talk at all.

Let’s be like those couples

eating silently in restaurants,

barely a word the entire meal.

We pitied them, but now I see

they were always so much smarter than we are.

Author: Ellen Bass

Ellen Bass’s most recent collection is Indigo (Copper Canyon, 2020). Her awards include Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks! (Doubleday, 1973), and co-authored the groundbreaking, The Courage to Heal (Harper & Row, 1988). Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass teaches in Pacific University’s MFA program and offers online Living Room Craft Talks at ellenbass.com.

Plume: Issue #20 February 2013