Marder’s poems display her humor, doggone it!

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — Someone might have predicted years ago when Sue Marder was 8 and still younger than her grandchildren are today,  that she would become both a writer and a volunteer at an animal shelter.  As a child she wrote a poem called “My Pet” and precociously sent it off to a magazine to have it published.  The magazine sent  the kindest rejection letter to Miss Koluba (her maiden name) at her Kansas City, Missouri home: “We enjoyed your article very much but unfortunately we are not able to publish it at this time.”  Rather than discourage her, the letter encouraged her to write and write.  Later in life she would produce a travelogue;  write a children’s book about a cactus unhappily stuck in heat of the desert;  and self-publish light-hearted books of poetry.

As one might expect, some of her poems dealt with animals. In Marder’s A Potpourri of Poetry, one selection was entitled “Lance.”

Lance is a mix
of who knows what,
generally thought of
as a mutt,
whose hair doesn’t stay in place,
but keeps falling in his
sad-looking face.

His eyes are still
filled with fun,
as he waits for
that special one.

He was brought
to the shelter
as a stray,
lost or abandoned,
it’s hard to say.

Many have walked
past his cage,
one family stopped
to ask his age,
but before
he could stand up,
they decided
on a tiny pup.

A woman started
to pass him by,
then stopped to look
into his eyes.
She saw the love
he had to give
And gave him
a chance to live.

What’s the moral
of this tale?
Although, there are many
dogs for sale,
go to your shelter
and give a chance
to the many more
like Lance.

Marder and her late pharmacist husband, Bob, not only raised two sons and a daughter to adulthood, but also had several dogs.  After the last dog died, she vowed that she wouldn’t expose herself to such heartbreak again.  No more dogs at home; she would just get her “doggie fix” at the San Diego County Animal Shelter.

And so it was until she saw a 5-pound chihuahua that had been left trembling on someone’s doorstep and was brought to the shelter. “She was shivering and completely traumatized, and the first time I saw her she was a little trembly ball,” Marder recalled.  “It took me probably an hour to get near her. She was wallow-eyed — their eyes get real big, they are terrified. I finally got her outside and away from all the noise and we sat and talked quietly, and finally she began trusting me.  I showed the manager of the shelter how she was coming around, and she said ‘this looks good, we have to get them to the point where people can respond to them.  Look how this one has bonded with you!’ ”

The manager then said thoughtfully, “I don’t know if she will bond with anyone else now that she has bonded with you.”

“Guilt trip! Guilt trip!” went the alarm bells in Marder’s head, but she brought the chihuahua home, and named her Little Love.  The dog  “would not even bark the first few months I had her, that is how traumatized she was, and now you would never know it, she barks and barks, and thinks she owns the street.  She is a completely different dog.  All it took was love.  I will have had her two years on January 12th.”

Sometimes, reflected Marder, people can be terribly mean to animals just as some unknown someone was to that chihuahua.   A poem titled “The Trial” — none would dare call it “doggerel” — reflects Marder’s feelings about the way some animals are treated.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye,
the day has come.
Man must answer
for the deed he’s done

Who will defend him in this court?
Who will help him with his tort?

“I will,” said the dog, “I’m his best friend.
I will defend him to the end.”

Who will prosecute him in this court?

“I will,” was elephant’s retort.
“I remember what he has done,
so I am the most able one.”

Elephant said, “To prove my case against man.
I summon bison to the stand.
Tell us what happened in your youth.
Do you swear to tell the truth?”

“Yes Sir I do, but it is hard
to tell of the slaughter that we endured.”

“Please tell us now for the judge must hear,
what happened to you through the years?”

“We grazed our land and multiplied,
our young were born, our old would die.”

“Tell us about when man came,”
elephant said.  “You must explain”

“We were killed, our land was taken,
our life was gone, we were forsaken.”

Dog said, “I object to what you say,
There was reason you were forced away.
Man needed food and man must thrive,
man is superior and must survive.”

“We could have lived in peace here,”
The bison said with a tear.
“With guns he hunted us and called it sporting.
He took all and left us nothing.
We are but a shadow on our land.
We want justice, we demand.”

“I call the passenger pigeon now,”
said elephant with a scowl.
“What is the story you have to tell?
Did your experience with man go well?”

“Oh no, it was not good at all.
We flew in flocks, he shot, we fell.
He shot and shot till we weren’t many
He shot and shot till we weren’t any.

Elephant shouted, “You mean he shot everyone?”

“Yes,” said the pigeon, we are all gone.”

Dog said, “I object to what you say.
There was reason you were forced away.
Man needed sport and man must thrive.
Man is superior and must survive.”

Pigeon cried, “We had the sky, he had the land
We did not compete with man.”

“Will the wolf come forth, elephant called out,
“Tell us what your history with man’s about?”

“Man trapped us, poisoned us and worse,
He left us with no place to turn.
He cleared the land and built his homes
which left us no place to roam.
He did not think of compromise,
but took all the earth as his prize.”

In a sad voice, dog said, “Man, I am your friend
but your record is hard to defend.
How can I help, what can I say,
You’ve killed the animals in your way.
You must show compassion, the time is late
for you are destroying all that G-d creates.”

When the Marders’ children Gary, Brad, and Rachel were young, they were unenthusiastic about going to Torah school.  Sue Marder visited the school and saw that it was complete chaos, with kids throwing erasers at each other and the teacher not at all successful keeping order. She and Bob decided to take the children out of school and to have a family meeting every Sunday at which they would discuss religious topics.

She said it was the best decision they could have made. Sometimes the sessions stretched beyond the scheduled one hour to several hours, as they became engrossed in discussing such subjects as the Bible, stories by Jewish writers, and ethics.  One can imagine how animated the discussion might have been when they read the Torah portion about Noah’s Ark.  Marder said that her children told her years later those Sunday family study sessions constituted some of their favorite  memories. Today the oldest, Gary, is chief lighting designer for the San Francisco Opera; Brad is a nephrologist who married a girl he met while studying at the Sachler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, and Rachel works in a human resources department.

After her husband died, Marder dedicated Smiles and Sighs,  another volume of poetry, to him.  The poem, “A Time,” may well have been influenced by the family’s study of Ecclesiastes:

A time of sadness
A time of weeping
A time of losing
the life I knew

A time of parting
A time of grieving
A time of closing
the life I knew

A time of learning
A time of growing
A time of starting
a life anew

Of course, no book of Marder’s poems would have been complete without a reflection about animals, and there was one titled “Giving Thanks.”

In the barnyard where Tom was born
the animals saw he was deformed
and because of his missing limb
the other turkeys all shunned him.
Even his mother took offense
and never came to his defense.

What an unhappy life he had
growing up alone and sad.
While his brothers strutted around
poor Tom just fluttered along the ground.

But when that November came
the farmer noted that Tom was lame.
This kept his neck from getting whacked
And left his giblets all intact.
Who knows when something most distressing
will turn out to be your greatest blessing.

*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com