Then I’ll Leave as Softly as I Came (1970)

Then I'll Leave as Softly as I Came (1970)

7" x 9"  B/W edition 180 pieces

My father enjoyed studying many cultures and poetry. On the grounds of King's College in Cambridge is a stone of white Bejing Marble with the poem composed in 1928 by Xu Zhimo. It is a romantic reflection of the East and West.

"Softly, I am leaving,

Just as softly as I came

I softly wave goodbye

To the clouds of the western sky."

My father met the woman in this lithograph on the Lower East Side of NYC.

She came to the USA with her parents and her brother in the early 1920s from a small town in Poland. Because of her thick accent, it was easier to speak in Yiddish. 

This is the only lithograph in which my father used the context of a poem for a tile of his art that did not originate from biblical scripture. When he visited Cambridge, he made notes of the poem that stayed with him for decades.