In the Path of Lightning
Charles Adès Fishman
Time Being Books
ISBN: 978-1-56809-176-1

Reviewer: Shaily Sahay

          Charles Adès Fishman has written prolifically over decades and established himself as an essential contemporary Jewish-American poet. His is a strong voice on the Holocaust and genocide, expressed in both poetry and academic writing. His latest book, In the Path of Lightning, consists of a hundred and twenty-five poems bunched under seven sections named after his previous books, except for the last one, “Desire of Angels.”

          Fishman’s poetry—part narrative, part concrete, part lyrical, part elegy, and part prose poetry—is driven by fury and a deep sense of justice in response to various wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11; these poems are also celebrations of memories, relationships, and women, and revering of spirituality and religion. There is in these works an unusual juxtaposition of violence, ghosts and angels, Buddhism and Islam. Fishman's imagery is suggestive and evocative, symbolic of complex, abstract concepts. Internal rhymes provide musicality, and extra spaces between words or phrases often create needed pauses.

          Poems such as “Bronx ’47,” “Spectrum Elegy,” and “A Six-Pointed Star” are raw with violence. “Puzzle” explores what it meant to be a Jew in Russia. “Ghosts Cry Out” sums up the section entitled “Mortal Companions”:

The wars come in waves: everything we love is pulled
beyond our holding.
Our parents go down beneath cold blindfolds of water.
Our children drown under crashing blackjacks of surf.

          “The Death Mazurka” flows on, addressing WWII, the Holocaust, the inhuman atrocities meted out to Jews. “September 1944” is a chilling account of a Gypsy camp.

The ashes had a bitter taste.
They were not from coal or burnt wood,
rags or paper.

They fell on us - mute, deaf,
relentless ashes, in which human breath,
shrieks and tears could be felt.

          The section “Chopin's Piano” offers poems that sing, paint, mourn, haunt, and horrify. These verses are living entities, bringing us to places and times where people have been burnt, or starved—Hiroshima, the Holocaust. Inspired by music, art, and culture, they communicate how these horrors infuse our psyches, the air we breathe, the music we dance to, the colors of our paintings. “Toledo” mourns the Jews of Spain.

..when Jews – more than five hundred ghettofuls of them in Valencia,
Toledo, Granada, Salamanca, Málaga, Cádiz, Córdoba – flourished
briefly, under Islam or Christianity, only to be punished later
simply for being….

          This is “poetry of witness”—not simply an account but an urge to acknowledge and protest. Notice the cadence and dance of these words (from "A Dance on the Poems of Rilke"):

a woman could be duly tortured for using rags
as tampons   or merely for adjusting her dress
a certain Czech woman who knew every word
danced to the poems of Rilke   moving sinuously
to each of his Orphean sonnets   bowing gracefully
with the first notes of each Elegie: she felt the dark music

of Rilke's heart…
…she…showed
even a halting step could be a triumph   and a dance
on the poems of a dead poet   might redeem

          The poems in “Country of Memory” are an iridescent collection of images related to growing up, youth, playfulness, bonds, and first love. Full of people, set amidst an abundance of movement (snow sport, water sport, sled, diving), these poems turn frequently somber, grappling with domestic violence, sickness, death, and coldblooded murder. Even through life's tender joys, Fishman captures impenetrable darkness, often focusing on turning points, life-junctures, critical moments.

          Poems in “Water under Water” also create narratives and offer memorable snapshots but here the trope is water—shape-shifting, reflecting, shimmering, never still; what does water hold under and what does water mean to each of us? Rivers, lakes, seas, and mist appear in narratives about boys and girls, animals and birds, poems set in New Orleans, Ireland, and Africa, sometimes as setting, sometimes as living characters. “Broken House” is a story of relationships. “Swans in the Mist” and “At Yeats’s Grave” are invocations for peace in Ireland. Rich detailing of colors and sounds bring these verses alive, lapping at the feet of the reader, before pulling her into the infinity of life itself. “Two Girls Leaping” brings alive the thrill with which one leaps into a pool, breaking and entering.

The pool is empty now, a liquid rectangle. Water has its
own life, its own candor. Step back. Take a running start.
Now tell me: What is your heart's desire?

          “Two Boys at the Seashore” evokes the time when one rummaged through relationships and spaces with hope or anxiety:

                           They mine the beach
for treasure, move in a haze of friendship
and unknowing.

          “In the Language of Women” is Fishman's dedication to women he admires all over the world. It opens with the backdrop of the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, with festivity and tenderness: “Joy sugared the air,/ as bright as firecrackers exploding.” (“Diwali Morning”)

          This section is his dedication to strength (“A Woman from Coimbatore,” “In the Slipstream”), femininity (“Queen of Recollection”), an animal lover's childhood memory (“Your Dog”), a music-lover's memories of her father (“Forgotten Songs”), and motherhood (“Golden Syrup”); “Six Southwest Memories,” “Distances from Heaven,” and “A Translator in Auschwitz” bring in Normandy, post-war Amsterdam, and Nazis in biopics of women leading normal love-filled lives, but for the war. There are women who have forgotten their songs and women who have seen Jesus. There are singers, writers, nuns, swimmers; Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews; Indians, Africans, Europeans, Americans—their memories, triumphs, and dreams.

          The final section, “Desire of Angels,” reflects Fishman’s most current and contemporary poetry, pieces drawing from newspaper reports, giving truer accounts than the best journalism, terror attacks, and the present day effect of all that has scarred the civilization. “Good Day, Father” is a touching letter to a dead father from a lost child. “Adam Remembers” is a retelling of the story of the Bible. The last poem, “Snow is the Poem Without Flags,” is dedicated to Orhan Pamuk:

…And where can we find this snow,
immersed as we are in summer   in the heat
of war   with a hot sun blazing   and the whine
of rockets and bombs that fly like blown flakes

of darkness   everything on fire with a great
and unquenchable thirst? Only the wind can speak
         and name its country.

          Reading this book constituted many journeys. I learned, I lived. At times, however, it became taxing to persevere through the horrendous. And though “Judaism” makes multiple appearances, I missed intimacy with its rites, ceremonies, and celebrations. That said, Fishman's poetry is unbounded, personal. It creates a space within me where I mourn, rebel, and demand—before dancing to the poems of Rilke.