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Migdal Eden

Books by Migdal Eden

The Bitter herb

From Out of the Burning Bush

Song of Sings

Baltimore Morroco

Headlines of Almost May

On Your Birthday

Erotic and Sensuous Meet

36 Variations of Flight

Color Me with Your Kisses

The Awakening

Prison Appendages

Nope, Nope, It’s not going to happen

Contents

You’re going

A Landscape from God’s Viewpoint A Landscape from God’s Viewpoint Spring Blossoms amongst Thyme and Rosemary From Inside a Cistern The Road Descending to Ein Kerem The Honey and the Sting Bound Together in the Carcass of the Lion Sharav (Desert Wind) The First Rains… The Flash Flood A Sunset Spent With Pharaoh and Ashes of Roses

From Within and Without a Pastel Peace Negev Sunset

From a Shepherd’s Pipe… Piped on a Negev Hill For a Long Time I’ve had Trouble Jerusalem is Also Jerusalem Is Also Going Up to Jerusalem… Jerusalem The City of Stone Jerusalem is also an Obsession More Obsession with the City of David Eating on the Terrace of the Cinematheque When… the Old City is Closed After the Riots

Holocaust Medley

Flames We Turn into Children The Strings of David’s Harp The red headed girl’s Bat Mitzvah The Butterfly from Holocaust poetry You Don’t Have to Try and Please Her Out of the Burning Bush In the Night’s Silence Having Animal Ears Out of the Burning Bush I didn’t hear them… The Burning Bush I Crawled into the Grave

Echoes of War

Echoes of the Gulf War Echo Echoes Overhead Echoes of the Gulf war (3) Silences of the living Silences of the living And the dead A Ton of Silent Spacing A Ton of Silent Spacing Choosing my War To un-feel…. Dealing with Illusions and Jokers The Night before Battle

A Tone on a Bone from a Stone A Tone on a Bone from a Stone Spectrum of Remembrance Blue Spectrum of Remembrance Saying Kaddish The Maayan What I would tell you, if I could Leaving Charm O Sheik Leaving Charm O Sheik And They Danced On His Grave In the Night I Dream I Am the King’s Stallion Mahane Yehuda Market

Soldiers and Poets To My Soldier Young Soldiers The Embrace Stepping On a Mine The One Question The Hidden The story of Isaac and Ishmael

And Hidden Both of us hiding I was forced to make the Choice And So, I Dishonor the Family Screaming in Arabic A Found Poem- The Newspaper Headline-“Arafat is dead” The Dubbke

The Price of an Identity

…An Israeli Signs Mis-belled… Or If the Choice is Between Grace Juice and Grenade Juice

There’s nothing like We Faint and Shrug Our Shoulders… Tower of Babel, Achieved in One A Sense of History; of Continuity Gained from…

The Population’s Density The Population’s Density… The Population’s Density Calls for …Pelephones

And everyone is a Stranger (Immigrant Blues) A Postcard from There to Here (you) Are You Addressing the Hieroglyphics of

my soul? The Film That Sent Nathan to Hollywood

…You’re Going

From a Journal Entry-To a son

Birthday Remembrances- April 19th To a child asleep

Cycles and Loves Basic Black, the Moon Rosh Hodesh Kill the Moonlight The Storm A Poem about You Running A Golden String from David’s Harp Kohl Rimmed Eyes The Log be Omer Fires Leap… The Eve before the Eve The Feast of Freedom Feast of the Un-pursued Bruised Time The Fig Tree and the Boy Jonah Sitting in it’s Shade Bat Sheva’s Loofa

Dedicated to my son Eden

And to all Israeli sons and daughters…..

0

1

You’re going. You don’t want to be here. Born just before the Peace in the Galil War… the war that lasted such a long time… You can’t imagine calling a war Peace in the Galil. (No, neither can I) So a new time and …you’re going. The photos that I took of you at other ages, on your bedroom door, still there. But you’re going, before your 18th birthday. You’ve been stubborn and clear for a long time… with friends both Jewish and Arab. You’ve been a questioner longer than most.

2

And… you’ve caused pain too, until I learned to say no to your strongly stated loyalties and directions. But at least… you were looking. You dared to do something about the iron fist of all the things that happened. ….. You chose. I’ll never see you in uniform, a blue and white flag …waving from the top of the tank… you’re commanding. This is one photo… I’ll never have of you.

3

A Landscape from God’s Viewpoint

4

Seen from this viewpoint… You and I are but a field of poppies in the Galil… blooming gaily but briefly, our petals ready to fly away in the wind… “It is so quiet here at the source of The Still Small Voice…” Enfolded within a tent of pure white light… Make me forget from yesterday, the sound of sirens… and make me see and feel, and look upon… and bless... the age old terraced hills… the treeless Judean Hills… the treeless Golan Heights… the treeless Galilean Hills… Remind me to put my head to the created earth (ha adama) into a quieter landscape… so that I too may look upon all that was created and say in deep satisfaction…. “And it was good.”

5

Spring Blossoms amongst Thyme and Rosemary The delicate blossoms on the apple trees of (The Land)… will be on the trees for a few days… two... or three… at most. Our spring days must be caught and held… … kissed quickly. “Kiss me now!” cry the blossoms…“for tomorrow I’ll be gone.” And if you are not of these...these spring blossoms… then you are of the thyme and the rosemary… their woody stems… trodden underfoot… scenting the air... more than the blossoms… You are long-lived... and… useful… stuffed into mattresses and scented pillows… and into your beloved’s dreams… or put into the cooking vessel tomorrow… to season the Passover lamb… the blossoms flown …the blood over the door.

6

From Inside a Cistern (Cool………..curved……….dense) the four hundred lives of the monks …condensed on the white walls marking unseen spiritual growth rings- the years and century past (passed) by the monks in the church/monastery of Saint John’s in Ein Kerem- huge and echoing with souls. (This empty cistern) shown by the one lone monk now residing in the church- -tending to tourists now- to me- the Jewish worshipper of cisterns. This cistern (filled full with clear in-gathered rain water) dripping down off of the palms would have given water to the thirsty- during a drought or under siege- for many months on end…………. I am awed….. By this vast void, by (this vast hidden underground reservoir…) hidden underneath the church and its vaulted painted ceilings; painted with saints looking off into space; talking to no one-vast golden icons and scented incense, guarding gilded heavens…

7

The Road Descending to Ein Kerem

On Bus Number 17 Beside you is an ancient Yemenite who you’ve known for an ancient long time- …at least a hundred years- minus his goats and his secret herbs, that gives him magic strength. He is sitting next to the doctor from Hadassah- ..who was born and grew up in Brooklyn. The doctor’s on his way home after a double shift, too tired to even wonder why? he made aliyah (rising up)- rising up to live a life of double shifts and riding buses, in order to… pay for his kid’s shoes.

8

The Yemenite’s on his way to the last bus stop, …to the turn around that sits across from his small synagogue and the local makolet. That’s where you know him from-…for the hundred years. He’s always sitting at that bus stop-…with his two friends.

9

The Honey and the Sting Bound Together in the Carcass of the Lion We camp out in the wadi, laying our sleeping bags out on the sand of the dry riverbed. When my bleeding starts, I strip off my clothes, bathing my limbs in the moonlight. Tonight, under sister moon’s influence I will not plug the blood. I squat calm, watching the blood flow into the ground. But it makes him ask anxious questions…like a little boy who’s never seen blood before. Aren’t you bleeding too much? He asks. His questions scare him, diminish his power. Calm in the moonlight, with sister moon’s glowing eyes, I see in him Samson’s heir, with all of his powers and blindness’. Looking at him thus I can feel his long hair brushing my inner thighs. And I know myself, my allure, my womanly scent that causes him to fall at my feet, blood or no blood, wanting relations with me. Sister moon’s eyes hold the image of what he will do in remembrance of me or in grief.

10

After the Sharav (Desert Wind)

The First Rains… The first drops, and there is a sizzling sound, accompanied by the smell of sulfur, as the rain falls onto the dusty limestone: Jerusalem stone, Jerusalem lintels; the keystones in arches, suddenly delineated, illuminated, by those first crisp drops… and suddenly everything is alert- the gazelle standing, by the dried up stream bed in the rocks- the sukkah, with the holes in the roof, to let the first few drops in- myself, standing poised under a domed ceiling- watching, watching, as the rains begin to take on form- to flow, to stream into the open mouth…of our desert thirst.

11

The Flash Flood The wadi hangs between the jagged peaks Of the Sinai, deep and deeply red- the color of the blood of the earth The wadi hangs hollow and suspended waiting for a message from the Heavens. This is about to come roaring through mountain passages… in a flash flood which will wash away a bus and the 36 German tourists. Rut and Mohammed, in a panic run out of their small house on the beach. Clutching their small son by one arm, they make a mad scramble to the top of the closest telephone pole. In the morning they are found, still clinging to the pole, still gripping their son by one arm. Their clothes have been removed, entirely ripped off and away by the raging waters.

12

A Sunset Spent with Pharaoh Ein Fasha I prize the cap off of a bottle of Gold star beer by holding its rim against a pointed rock, while tapping it sharply on the top… The empty bottle, falling, rolls down the mountain without breaking

13

Ein Fasha The cry of the hawk flows through the spaces of the bare hills. The sun sinking lower streams in light golden rays giving up its last light. Down below me the hawk wheels hanging in the air flut it’s wings suddenly tering. . On the beach; this side of the Jordanian border the sand under the wheels of the jeep turns cold… as the evening wind catches hold, the air spare with smells…rich in spare-ness

14

Nebe Musa

15

Negev Sunset the call to prayer echoes along with the smell of strong coffee Arabic and filtered light through- among the flat roofed houses staggered on the dry bare hills. The boys walk down the streets holding hands. The Bedouin boy passing by with his flock flickers on and off the screen of a sun silhouetted hill. drr… drr… drr... his guttural call lifts to the sky, pulling his flock on.

16

For a Long Time I’ve had Trouble For a long time I’ve had trouble with the prayer that says… He(God) will bring peace upon us. He will erect a Tent of Peace… Over us (around us) I simply don’t believe it. I wish I did.

17

Jerusalem is Also

18

I come into the city through a tunnel. I am armed with a rifle, a pistol, and a hand grenade. The walls of the tunnel run red with blood. I notice the walls of the tunnel becoming smaller. The opening at the end of the tunnel …is closing. I run to get into the city before it closes… My child also went into the city through a tunnel. but his tunnel was white and filled with translucent light. His tunnel billowed and grew, as he ran lightly. His heart filled with gladness, on his way into the city. My friend comes into the city through a tunnel, a soft red tunnel, with pulsating walls that give to the touch, the walls a deep rich red…

19

Lion of Judah

20

Going Up to Jerusalem… growing on hills, on hills… past the sad and rusted out didactic lesson of the burned out convoy, that didn’t make it- shuddering in its blood where it fell- attempting to break the siege of Jerusalem… ….growing on hills, on hills Growing on hills, on hills…

Growing on hills, on hills… mustard plants… that feed the starving during the seige Manna and mama… breastfeeding with stricken breast, the city under siege Growing on hills, on hills- the mushrooming David-s who would be saviors, or sluts- nailing themselves up on gaily decorated booths; Jerusalem known as the city with the Messiah Complex.

21

Jerusalem growing on hills, on hills- a quilt to the eye- embroidered with the Knesset and Qumran lid; and the regalia of Old City and New- Jerusalem, growing and growing on the hills; like the tender tears of girls, shed over their first and last love; like the tender smiles of children, smiled over their first birthday cake, over their first understood joke.

22

Mosaic YMCA Jerusalem

Jerusalem Jerusalem rears itself up out of the hill… the destroyed Temple shimmering in the air… Jeremiah saying… Jerusalem will be leveled Jerusalem will be restored… for its wickedness… for its contempt… for its hope… for it’s turning.

23

Jerusalem rears itself up out of the hill… the destroyed Temple straining the soul… none of us different… than the others …of Jeremiah’s time.

24

The City of Stone The City of Stone... Jerusalem rears itself up out of the hill… along with questions. The Central Bus Station… Where will it take you? The City of Stone… Jerusalem rears itself up out of the hill… shimmering and straining at all belief. The City of Stone… Jerusalem rears itself up out of the hill… suddenly only a city… …too heavy, too busy under the weight of its real meaning.

25

A Roman sarcophagus being used as a planter

26

Jerusalem is also an Obsession Everyone comes to Jerusalem expecting to see Jesus Christ… come strolling out… from the Worker’s Bank on Ben Yehuda Street. Ivan Schweibel…made his reputation painting pictures of David ha Melech… doing that very thing. Ivan lives in Ein Kerem But… he comes from New York. Is that why Jerusalem is an obsession to him? Tourists, new immigrants land at Ben Gurian Airport, with the same obsessions, the same question. “Will I find God in Jerusalem?” I’m thinking “Even the dead ones want to come here and die again”

27

More Obsession with the City of David Riding through Jerusalem the “Holy City” wouldn’t it be a relief to feel yourself in some “foreign city” Prague maybe or even Chicago? What is it about Jerusalem that gives birth to Crusades, gets it razed and plowed under by salt, and gives new meaning to the word Waco? How many more David-s are volunteering to go crazy in the City of David? streaking out from the tomb of the Worker’s Bank on Ben Yehuda Street?

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29

Eating on the Terrace of the Cinematheque… when…The Old City is Closed After the Riots The stage (I mean) the tables are set on the outdoor terrace of the Cinematheque- with its excellent (front row) view of the Old City walls... set with Michelangelo beauty (the Mona Lisa smile) into its setting clasp, on the Hill of Evil Council… Smoking alabaster pillars of resonance- of yesterdays tear gas clouds- lift lazily in the non-wind over the Old City- as it seemingly coils, curls, and sleeps- its nose tucked in its tail/ turned into its butt. After yesterday’s riots/ clad in scarlet and black (blood and knives concealed in her black robes -and behind her veil) the protective seducing smile… Today, the veil rent, the sky torn- the guard on alert, buzzing helicopters low overhead. What drove me to eat here, half reclining in the hatred that I feel in the sun shielded glare from over there? only a steep wadi suicide jump away- only the non-perspective medieval tapestry-jump away

30

All of us… them-we-“us”… …could easily suicide bomb this wadi- between us… this short leap (or) If we set out one by one, walking a thin wire stretched over the wadi that lies uneasily between the Old City… and the New, as that French wirewalker did one year for a Jerusalem Festival feat- in silver sequins proclaiming it an act of worship- knowing that we’re not going anywhere- except to kill and to die- like mosquitoes dive bombing a bug zapper

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Holocaust Medley

32

Flames The Children’s Memorial at Har Herzl The children. The children are a million flames…reflected in an endless mirrored hall. Their names and ages, when they died …whispered out on the cold surfaces of the mirrors… Shmule, age two, Prague, 1939 Rachel, age five, Krakow, 1941 Hannah, age four, Warsaw, 1943 Aaron, age five, Seidlitz, Gubernia 1942 David, age nine Thereisenstadt 1943 Yitka, age eight, Thereisenstadt Rifka, age seven, Warsaw Marcelle, age six, Hochberg

…The children are a million flames.

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34

We Turn into Children We turn into children dreaming dreams of the Holocaust (and we’re only four), dreaming dreams of violence and endings, and painful rain… of soot from chimneys, that to our four-year-old eyes need explanation and understanding- a transmutation of the souls that we’ve taken on, that is far away from the understanding of our years- our four-year-old eyes and fears, that leaps like black bears holding onto and force marching a great mob of children- darkness in their eyes, hunger underneath their mops of curls These children...so far away… (from our year and time)- back then…and now…run… (right into our dreams) … splintering, erasing, every sense, every kindness- as we turn into children… a boy, a girl…two halves of the same soul… torn apart (then)…. Rejoined (now), we hold each other, trembling unable to let go of each other… as the dreams return. Again… and again… and again… we’re four…we’re four… we’re four…. and then….. ( ) …………no more

35

The Strings of David’s Harp The golden strings come unstrung- giving up a psalm each, one by one- not written in stone, carved, chiseled, thrown down in anger, broken- when the people don’t respond, don’t even look. The golden strings falling-one by one- needing to be re-sung, remembered, re-prayed…David, smiling gently, singing- as one of the golden strings of his harp, is used to wrap up/ is wound around a package of meat (kosher or non-kosher?) purchased from Kessler Bros… -sings around the paper wrapped piece of meat; a nothing special, mundane weekday piece of meat, purchased unthinking, on a Monday.

36

David’s harp strings come unstrung- sing a psalm, a prayer- one and one, as the body of the baby from the ghetto of Warsaw, who starved to death in 1943- in the ghetto- no tallit, no ten commandments revealed; not a single one- the body of the child, the only meat left in the ghetto, with its bones (Kosher or non-kosher?) wrapped round with butcher’s paper from Kessler Bros. (plain, rough paper)- no tallit, but tied and remembered, and prayed by, wound by a golden string of David’s harp. David smiling gently, singing a lullaby- rocking the dead starved child sweet- sung for an eternity.

37

The red headed girl’s Bat Mitzvah At Kol ha Neshema… Bubbe, also a Rabbi, sits in the congregation …among the celebrants. He has come from America, to see his Israeli granddaughter ...celebrate her Bat Mitzvah. Bubbe caught in a picture, forever proud, …senses all alive in generational connection. Levi has changed out of shorts into more Rabbinical garb, to officiate at the red headed girl’s Bat Mitzvah… dropped is the sandaled foot from off the edge of his desk. ……A flock of redheads are lined up… in order of height………… ………. behind the bema… … in front of the ark……looking like …a set of polished copper organ pipes… shiny as new coins, ready to blow their whistles:

a cluster of red headed bells… ……..arranged in ringing tone.

38

From behind the black and white stripes of Levi’s turned back, I see the smallest red headed boy’s eyes… turned …onto Levi’s in a big closed mouthed smile. His red headed sister beside him is more serene… arms folded, her left hand gripping her right wrist… In embracing calm celebration… what you see are her eyes looking out from Theresienstadt’s locked and artfully placed windows and gates, that said in so many carefully painted scenes- set up for the eyes of Red Cross observers- “See how we cherish these Jewish children! ..See, they are in good hands! Don’t you see that I am treating them like I am their auntie!.....................” ……What you see are her eyes… looking out from Theresienstadt- but a calm, serene, and safe Theresienstadt. She’s writing a poem about the first butterfly…… not the last. The Altar cloth runs along in golden approval as the young red headed girl begins her chanting …………..and her passage into womanhood

39

40

Recovered from a hidden cache in Theresienstadt

The Butterfly Butterfly (Pavel…….) The Butterfly He was the last. Truly the last. Such yellowness was bitter and blinding Like the sun’s tear shattered on stone. Pavel That was his true colour. And how easily he climbed, and how high. Certainly, climbing, he wanted to kiss the last of my world.

I have been here for seven weeks, Pavel ‘Ghettoized’. Who loved me have found me, Daisies call to me, And the branches also of the white chestnut in the yard. But I haven’t seen a butterfly here. The last one was the last one. Pavel There are no butterflies, here in the ghetto. Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel Pavel......... Theresienstadt 1942

41

You Don’t Have to Try and Please Her You don’t have to try and please her, ever- wouldn’t work anyway, as she has grown old, not giving you love, until she dwells in a withered and shrunken heart, that needs too much, that is looking frantically to be dependant, but not loving, not acknowledging, and will never acknowledge, your worth, your heart… your needs. She never needed you, except to dress you up and use you as a specimen labeled son, “beautifully dressed, look how his hair is combed- I did that!” So, you don’t have to try and please her, ever- wouldn’t work anyway, as she has trod down the road, persistently backward with stubborn patience-patience for that useless labor, but not for you, never for you. For you, she ignored the road signs, skipped getting off at the right stop on purpose, because- just because. The numbers on her arm-stunted her growth- exchanged love for-exchanged love for-the knowledge of when she is being cheated- and that is- (always)(and never…)

42

she would prefer to have a beautifully worded letter from Steven Spielberg- instead of- a beautifully worded son, you, who says… “How brave you are! How wonderful you are, mother! for telling your story of your life/ non-life in the death camps at age 13- They stunted your growth, and aborted your ability to love. The numbers on your arm are clear……………………… Your love is not.”

43

The One Question You will say that you have suffered no big losses in your life, …but I know that you have. You have hidden your losses from yourself, do not let yourself feel them. What do you call growing up with the knowledge that your father survived the camps at age 19 by preparing murdered Jewish bodies for the ovens- -fresh bread?

44

Out of the Burning Bush

45

In the Night’s Silence Having Animal Ears You were called to reserve duty only for a week this time, but I have missed you. Listening for your footsteps, I have grown ears, larger than an African elephant. When are you coming home? We listen….

46

Out of the Burning Bush There wasn’t much hope, was there? Of coming back alive. The song said that, The Savior isn’t coming home. He isn’t even going to call. The first sight of you, swinging down the hall, on duty at Sha’re EtZedek hospital… made me want to close you inside of a closed fist; protectively, maybe just to take you… But you had your own defenses. You’ve slipped through my fingers. By being an Israeli, stubborn to survive, was that the undoing? The fate? In uniform, an Uzi slung over your shoulder, our eyes not meeting, you left. We never really talked about the fear….

47

I didn’t hear them, any of them, when they said that they were sorry… that you were a good soldier. Were you a good soldier? that you had made your choice. Had you made your choice? that you did what had to be done. Did you do what had to be done? Yes, but that doesn’t change anything…….. I saw through you, as you tried to tell me. Shrugging your shoulders, You said, “That’s life” Empty sheets is not life.

Shrugging your shoulders, you said, “That’s life.” That’s life? Is that the answer? Close the lid of the box of need because- the box will be closed. Who cares? It has all happened before, and it will happen again.

48

…A dream. The quality of the symbol and the meaning that it engenders. I keep having this dream, where I have to lift your body and put it into the grave myself. I cannot stand this dream. So I dream backwards. “Look into my eyes! Stand up!” I run- to reach out, to balance, to hold you as you’re falling- but in your eyes – I can see life draining away, I can see-nothing. Then I wake myself up, shaking, Your eyes…………………………………….. no longer……..

I Crawled into the Grave His voice. “She lay down on the grave with me. She still tried to kiss me. I tried to tell her, “That’s life. I cannot put my arms around you, with no voice to speak.”

49

Echoes of War

50

Echoes of the Gulf War Visiting here in America, the fire siren echoes the air raid siren; the gas mask to put on, the radio and television endlessly stuttering out that music and… an echoed scene. The curfew is off… I am...at the building site in Talpiot… along with three Arab workers from the territories who didn’t get a distribution of gas masks. They are up dancing on their roves, cheering, when they’re at home in the village Without gas masks on, as the scuds fall on Tel Aviv. When the air raid sirens go off now, They know that I have a gas mask with me. “No, I tell them. There’s one gas mask, and four of us. No one is going to put it on. If it’s dropped, you will see the nerve gas rolling in a low white cloud towards us… if we’re going to die.”

51

Behind me a blue license plate ...the license plate of the territories. What am I doing here? Again? I’ve run out of friends to risk my life for by visiting here.

52

Echoes Overhead The only sound to be heard… flying high overhead over the cloud cover… not to be seen Dani and the other reserve pilots called out of their offices to fly over our heads… to protect us. There is not another sound to be heard. It is the middle of the day. We are under curfew. We can do nothing to save ourselves except eat ourselves… the sound of the planes over the clouds spinning in our heads.

53

(3) My son writes a funny essay for school about what it’s like to huddle on the bathroom floor trying to get a gas mask on that’s not adjusted right- that we look like frogs to each other through our fogged, blurry face plates. He doesn’t write about getting scared when I finally refuse to put the gas mask on anymore… The bombing is on some sort of schedule. Much later I read that this is because… ...the Americans prevent many bombs from being launched. But at the time it seems that the enemy- has put the bombing on a tea time schedule. When the air raid sirens go off, off schedule, we are stuck en route on the bus staring out the glass of the bus windows up at the sky, cursing, laughing because Mad Saddam has sent us a curve ball scud. This mad man is trying to kill our children …who try to write humorous essays in the midst of terror.

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Silences of the living Silences of the living And the dead

56

A Ton of Silent Spacing Our relating- double spaced on heavily embossed parchment, an ocean of ewes- roaming the dusty Negev hills, turning their heads, searching for a call, for the voice, the shrill whistle, the shepherd’s crook, the shepherd, as our relating-single spaced, walks through the narrow crevice of a subterranean cavern under the desert mound- walks blindly… hands groping out, getting scraped on the jagged crawl space, suddenly knowing, that it’s lost its way- and where is its guide? Where is a candle or flash light? as our relating- thrashes wildly, suddenly released – into the open space beneath the throbbing helicopter. Our unit – called out in a state of emergency- Code 8 during this dream; where I can see you again- in uniform- dying in front of my eyes- again and again.

57

Our relating…. never over in the spacing …..between the carved letters on the stone….over your grave, in the spacing …. between….the words… written down… in the spacing between…the nights…and… the day in the spacing between the dreams… in the spacing between… the ewes and ... the ram…….and it’s horn…. in the spacing…………………. And………. You are………………………………………… (not there)

58

Choosing my War I didn’t choose any of the wars Especially not the one that I lived through (so they tell me) and choose to call mine What I did choose – was to fight rather than go down without a struggle. I’m hard to catch, harder to kill but you weren’t, and now in frozen scenes- in frozen pain- I see you still, taking too long to die- as your gut exploded- expanding the dust with your blood. ….Piling up in (those memories) Breeching the walls of my soul …over and over again, without mercy, until I’m empty………………….. trying to make sense of the next sentence-the next breath even though the sentence was not my death- but yours.

59

To un-feel…. a gift bottle of red wine, spilling like your blood onto the white table cloth, etches the details of your dying, until indelibly fixed, the stain on the table cloth-is stamped like a visa. Even as I pass out, feelings run like agile rats, along the ropes of my veins and arteries, biting me, chewing at the anchor of my denying numbness… Now …stretched out on the floor beneath the table in vague unconsciousness; I’d like to raise my arms in surrender and make peace with my memories- ..with my war- (which they’ve said I’ve lived through). In unconscious haste I’m looking all around

(but) I can find no one to surrender peacefully to.

60

Dealing with Illusions and Jokers I wear a veil, a mirage…writing some sort of account…as we sit around the campfire in the wadi, playing strip poker at high midnight. It’s cold enough to make it a challenge… removing any small piece of uniform here- in the red jagged freeze. In the morning, we’ll hike under the burning, fiery prow of the Sinai sun… on our way to Santa Katarina. What will we find there?…. Will we find the ark there a splinter from the unknowable? Will we find stone tablets? the Ten Commandments? once again commanded? …or only fragments of broken commandments, scurrying around like roaches… in search of a nest? More likely we’ll find a hidden sniper’s hatch, a sniper’s venomous fanged shots, shooting at us from some blind hole, shots aimed at us as we re-cross the barren curse of the Wilderness /as, in quest, we march re-conquering and being relieved of the same bloody sand-over and over again. (Only if only to reach the canal)

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(Only if only to reach the canal) …in time to re-part the Red Sea… to re-take for the 10th time… something that on account of an oath/ on account of a vow that was made… (and MAYBE there is no other choice.) But from tiredness, in sore eyes, and lack of sleep, who can remember when or why we are at war once more… Can we repeat a miracle? And live? fighting for our freedom, or dying, be forgotten……. ….I sit wearing a mirage- re-creating with words and my wounds- a war- that will be remembered vividly, in nightmares, (and only by my companions.) (I AM CREATED) -an image or mirage in the desert by a people whom from our dealings, force our unplanned un-wished for forays into the desert via arid, tense- dry un-named wadis- battlefields (that will be erased in the next sand storm)- by the next flash flood -I AM- the everlasting “civilian soldier” …being dealt… illusions and jokers …being dealt…the flags, nations, and citizens

- of other fallen civilizations.

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The Night before Battle Kobi, quietly, with intensity, tensely cleans his gun. Uri leans against his jeep- nonchalantly, as Eyal rolls up in his sleeping bag, ignoring everything … too tired to care much… …on the eve of… another battle.

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A Tone on a Bone from a Stone

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A Tone on a Bone from a Stone With no proofing to create protective cross hatching insulation- He fell at once, and whoever was standing close enough …heard a loud crack- as his skull shattered under the force of – the blow from the stone… Does a stone have a man’s name on it like a bullet? fragmenting into a thousand pieces of pain, like a bomb filled with nails and shrapnel, designed to shatter the …youngest human souls within range… And is that praying or fierce exultation, that exhalation, …… coming out from that nearby mosque? as they run out… the screaming, joyous mob, to rip the skin off the bones of the still living man…

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Spectrum of Remembrance For Yaakov, remembered Yellow, the grave in the Middle Eastern heat- nondescript; your memory kept cradled in thin fluid. Green, the color of life- the color of a four leaf clover, of the shimmering breast feathers of…a hummingbird. Green, I hold your face in my hands- like a growing thing. I water it. I cry for it if it droops. I sing for it as sap rises in the spring. Green, I hold your face in my hands like a growing thing.

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Blue Spectrum of Remembrance To Yaakov, who died at Mary’s Well of Annunciation Blue. Blue can be so thin. They say that you took chances. You stood on the steps of the resort, veteran of the Golani Brigade, survivor of the Yom Kippur War. You pretended to do an expert karate chop on the iron railing, “I’m going to break this!” …Your blue fragility stays with me along with the knowledge that you were stabbed sixteen times with the butcher knife, pulling yourself into the street, identifying your killer…knowing that you were dying… Indigo, the gathering darkness, shadowing- the water, the mirror turned to the wall… Violet, over and over again in spring flowers the soil moist, touchable under the leaves. In the streets of Jerusalem, your name- number 69 on a right wing group’s sign listing Jewish political victims crying for blood… more blood for blood

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Yacov Saying Kaddish The mourner’s prayer… I return alone to synagogue. I want to express, I need to belong, I need to …………reconnect. I didn’t stop believing in God… I hadn’t stopped believing in God… this time. But, and because, and what was I left with? I was left with saying Kaddish for you, with loving a dead man, and with hard truths. I wasn’t with you that night. I couldn’t have stopped the knife. Who would have said Kaddish for me? Khalil sharpened the knives in the kitchen- choosing the largest, the sharpest one to cut off your life… to bring on your soul’s cry, and my own answering cry. The mourner’s prayer... ...the prayer of endings

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The Maayan The maayan, the spring… (or the fall) the true story maayan… in Ein Kerem where Elizabeth stood talking to her cousin Mary. (Actually, I doubt that they stood.) Being girls they probably both had their shoes off and were throwing pebbles into the water and braiding each other’s hair- Mary’s head lying in her cousin Elizabeth’s lap as each told the other about the blessed child that they were carrying (they were) inside and beside… This maayan, this spring… where in 1949, all the women, all the Moroccan women, were forced to draw water…when they were put to live in Ein Kerem, after they made their way from Moroccan boats made out of bulrushes like Moses’. …But unlike Moses they had no special protecksia, and didn’t end up living in Pharaoh’s palace, eating off of Pharaoh’s golden plate.

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They did have a roof over their head granted by Turkish law and they did have water… if they were strong enough to walk with a heavy jar in the heat to… The maayan, the spring (and the fall, the death) the place, the hour, The Angel of Death drew up my Yaakov, to drink, to carry away in a jar on his head, to take away from me, from life… after the terrorist, murderer, the deranged man, rearranged Jacob’s evening (prayer, life) …with his big knife. Yaakov took an hour bleeding into the water, - into the maayan- took an hour to die, as he waited for the Angel of Death to come and announce, as he laid with his head on the stone lap of the maayan, and the rosemary scented wind braided his hair, as he lay down to die… at the maayan…… the spring.

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The Maayan

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What I would tell you, if I could I look at your picture, taken the year that … you were murdered. I count it among the treasures of my life; not the picture, but the real you, who near the end had let go, saying… that you would make do…with what was available. The Yaakov of the picture, isn’t making do; wouldn’t embrace death and his murder(er) …as a kind of fate. Roni thinks that you took chances with your life- all along- says that (maybe?) you had an inkling that you would-soon die -when …………..you took in your murderer. He says that it was plain to many of your friends, the terrorist nature of the man that you gave- a home, and work, and a living to……….. But I think, that they are reading into things- that you were wise enough… not …to bring a death wish into your heart. Even though you had had disappointments, I don’t think, that you wished your death, into being.

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I would tell you if I could, that I know, that …You’ve watched over me… continuing in a guardianship and teaching, and loving presence from another level of being… (that came into being with your dying.) Sometimes I’ve felt your presence actually talking to me in the fourteen years since, that have passed, all too quickly… (and all too slowly.) I know that it was you, and what you were telling me, on the ride to Tel Aviv, last November… Your presence, and your words have a unique taste, not unlike a warm, embrace of a warm current, warming me and the Mediterranean. Your love and forgiveness, came through so clearly…and I was crying all the way...along the shore, …and into the boulevards of Jaffa. I cried as if you had died last week, …not fourteen years ago. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, if I hadn’t experienced it. I felt such an intense grieving, combined with such an intense feeling of being loved. It was almost unbearable. I don’t feel large enough to encompass such intense feeling.

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Your death always meant as much to me, as your life; teaching me, that I have to do what I have to do, and about… what I have to live for.

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Leaving Charm O Sheik A peace plan, a truce, always involves moving… The Bedouin women with no passports- will be returned to no man’s land whether they are wanted or not, whether they want to or not… The doctor in charge of the clinic is packing for Africa and divorcing his wife, leaving behind his mistress- who will move to Tel Aviv- whether she wants to or not, whether they want to or not.

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And They Danced On His Grave The ones who danced on his grave clapping, Prancing, shouting Whula! with undisguised glee. What were they saying about themselves? Rabin wasn’t a saint. Shalom Chaver was only something some American said, not appropriate for us to keep on and on with. One could hope, we aren’t that empty or… …that at a loss… keening forever over the grave. They danced on Sadat’s grave too ….the time before. Sadat, not one of the beautiful people; Egyptians-One can meet -playing all over Europe- No! not a green eyed Pharaoh or Cleopatra- but neither one of the eyeless peasants; the ones that wandered the Sinai on patrol, the year after Israel gave it back- -stumbling along with sticks on their shoulders- no guns to go around…..

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From many times (and lives) before, Sadat, it seems… had burned off the emoting, the irrational… that duped Arab sense of self …somewhere…had burned off the self-deception …………………during one of the wars. “No more war, no more bloodshed!” was a succinct enough statement- no keening, no dancing

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In the Night I Dream I Am the King’s Stallion Dedicated to King Hussein of Jordan My dream …I am your horse, your prize Arabian stallion- as white as the moonlight dripping down onto my strong muscled neck. White mane stirring, nostrils flaring- I stand still on the Negev hill, hidden by the dark. Warily I watch you. In the night’s silence, I had almost forgotten the grip of your legs as you rode me yesterday, (or some other yesterday.) We both sweated… I from fear and running; the running that I ran when you for the first time… put all of your weight on me, when we ran as one. I did not try to throw you off. Remembering now, I stand keeping a little distance, thinking.

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Mahane Yehuda Market

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Soldiers and Poets

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Young Soldiers The Food Court of the Canyion is serving young soldiers… all in full uniform-

bullet clips on their belts- Young soldiers all wanting something fast- and laughing or not- because they’re young-and laughing or not. The units and squads- the groups and herds- of the young soldiers- equally mixed between white faces- and the sons of Sheba- and smiling or not- because they’re young soldiers- and smiling or not-all gathered at the watering hole- in boots- and belts- and clips- and jesting or not-because they’re young soldiers- and jesting or not.

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The Embrace The embrace between the young Ashkenazi soldier and his Ethiopian comrade who has strolled into the Food Court at Canyion Jerusalem looks like the embrace of lovers who have made a suicide pact- looks like the embrace of lovers- reunited after being separated by war-each thinking the other dead- looks like the embrace of lovers- who know that all can end quickly-and that machine guns -and bullet clips presented-to each others aid- are only a proffered gift- not a charm – as are flowers for you on Shabbat. They keep arms draped around each other’s shoulders- heads turned to each other- as they walk off in to the clouds- and become some other fallen one’s mother’s sight- some other fallen one’s Yom Kippur whisper- in the Book of the Living…sealed now.

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Stepping On a Mine Brave young leader of the unit – gone into Lebanon on patrol. He saw the mine, as some of the men under his leadership, were about to, would have… stepped forward and onto it. So he made a mad lunge and beat them to it. He didn’t die. He merely had to have his face re-sewn together; lost the hearing in one ear. And Elise, who had already questioned his uprightness, his steadfastness, his quest, to better himself through the army – abandoned him. I met him after the movie, in Tiberius. He turned his head to hear me. His face was frightening, in that you could see that he was formerly beautiful, but- was beautiful no more. His face was tilted, off-center, jarring. He said that he was getting married anyway… not to Elise.

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The Hidden

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The Hidden

The story of Isaac and Ishmael

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When you married me you didn’t marry a Jew. You married an island of security. I couldn’t understand why your “best” friend- belonged to a group whose party scream is, “Not one more drop of Jewish blood!” It wasn’t a subtle message…. This land is mine. This land is mine. The butterfly fluttering of those lines in his eyes and yours… Your parents taking but not accepting our marriage. Their successfully educated Arab doctor son marry a divorced Jewish woman with a child? They wanted to know on whose side you were -standing now? This land was mine. This land was mine. I saw the butterfly fluttering-s in their eyes.

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And Hidden A popular but lonely doctor at Hadassah

They didn’t know what you were hearing from every corridor opening at Hadassah; that you hid behind me whenever we had to rent an apartment. I didn’t know a better way either. How could I ever get this land and you to feel like mine if I didn’t fight for it? Something inside of me wanted to prove ...that we could live together.(but) You wanted no issues. I wanted to wave our marriage- around like a flag. You wanted me to be quiet You could not forget the bicycle bomb outside the movie theatre; the blast, and the maimed and the screaming. Your first instinct was that of the doctor; the second was of the Arab suspect, running for his life.

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Both of us hiding Both of us hiding our identities- I the daughter of an alcoholic who was forced to play “house” more than a bit too close for comfort with daddy. I certainly wasn’t going to play doctor with you. You would have had to answer questions that you couldn’t bring yourself to ask. You, the son of violent emotions and the “shame” of ’48. You hid behind your doctor’s clothes wanting to save and only be good and never let anyone ever feel any pain. I remember the look on your face when that woman died on you beside the road, your shoes covered with her blood.

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I was forced to make the Choice While I played the family conscience, tried to control every terror from behind my psychologist’s degree; instead of learning to love your outward face, which was always on duty, I only learned to pretend that I wasn’t angry. If you accepted other people being Jews, There wasn’t much you could do about it, was there? I paid too much to support you, to accept you. You should have been proud when I took apart the soldiers who were giving you a hard time at the airport. You’d saved enough Jewish lives. I shouldn’t have given away the Kiddush cup, the Shabbat candlesticks, my prayer book. Holocaust day should not have been passed in complete silence, with an absolute lack of words. I am Jewish. You needed me Jewish or not at all.

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And So, I Dishonor the Family So much moaning, so many tears, and (never) the real emotion. The real emotions are never revealed, just hinted at, if you’re quick at catching the expression behind (that Arab smile to die for.) I was, so I do learn the Arab way of doing things; how many times to refuse the sweets and the orange on the plate (with a knife) before accepting. While I learn to dance a dubbke. I also learn (what to do to dishonor the family,) (how to get through that false Arab self that I feel imprisoned by,) what to do-

to become thoroughly unforgivable to you.

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Screaming in Arabic Put me in a room full of ululating women screaming their success; (for the marriage, for the birth of a son); wielding long knives to chop the parsley… … (really small.) I will get away if you don’t chop me up (even smaller.) Start the rhythms of the wedding (tempt me into trance)- wave that sword again, your head graceful, your hips moving with your feet, in half time. (It is your sense of reality that is- moving in half time) No matter what your overstuffed poems say, I’ll never again speak in blue-eyed Arabic- (poetry for you).

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-The Newspaper Headline-“Arafat is dead” I’ve seen- The Burial Society up in the trees looking for body parts of people that were riding in the bombed out bus, twisted and mangled; turned over by the road, as I go by I’ve felt- The shock in the air as the roof of the bus 18 in front of me, blew off, and an object which I later learned was a women’s leg, flew off across the length…of the soccer field in front of the school. I’ve felt the shock in the fact that I missed taking that bus…by seconds… …and that I had two six year olds in hand, who could have been turned into tree poems, and pieces of bodies, searched for by the Havra Kaddisha as the sun sank… and another woman rode by on yet another bus I’ve been a part of- The crowd in Tel Aviv Square- the very festive crowd that backed Rabin in his moves to peace, in spite of the terrorists, in spite of the hard liners, in spite of the kidnappings, in spite of the daily blocking of my road home, by hard liners, who wanted revenge, not peace. I lived two doors down from our Prime Minister. I’ve been a part of - the crowd when he sang Sheer le Shalom (Song of Peace) a part of the crowd that were still singing, children on our shoulders, as he was shot down for making peace, bleeding on his copy of Sheer le Shalom, stuck in his breast pocket. That was the first time- and the last time that he sang in public…I was part of- I was part of this crowd, and can never hear the Song of Peace……without crying.

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I’ve seen. I’ve seen-an Arab’s point of view, an Arab’s point of emotions; an Arab’s lack of proportion. For eleven years, I was married to an Arab from Beit Jalla, born after 1948… born after “The Shame” I’ve seen and I know the way that an Arab smile hides every real feeling. You’ll never know whether the smile hides love, or knives, …or a thirst for revenge… I’ve seen That real sadness is never allowed in this culture- hyperbole abounds- joins an inflated sense of injustice, an inflated, over dramatized sense of loss- that allows for no analysis of reason -just blood, and blood, and more blood…. I’ve felt what happens, when you offend an Arab’s sense of pride. It is a Feudal Society that allows a brother to kill his sister, if she offends- that allows people to be owned by their land owner, their Feudal lord, of which -Arafat was one- corrupt to the bone, owning to the point, where he allowed no loss, especially no loss of pride

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I’ve felt I’ve felt what happens when you offend an Arab’s sense of pride; (That’s the worst sin to an Arab.) One that you or I, through reasoning, cannot understand I’ve been a part of- I’ve been a part of-a part of Arab culture, Arab blood, Arab kinship, and I understand, I can understand, (why) I went into the West Bank, long after it was safe, (long after I was forbidden by reason of curfew to do so...) I’ve seen- I’ve seen with my own two eyes, to my horror what five year olds have become, under Arafat’s “protection” and tutelage”. I’ve seen… I’ve seen…. their mindless, hateful eyes when reciting what was once a pride of poetry. Their poetry declamations and contests-this was once what they were good at, having eight different words for snowflake. Now, all I’ve seen in this five year olds eyes-should be sacrificed, should be burned, as he declaims how we will eat all Jewish hearts like mine, as he rams his fists down his throat- to show me how.

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I’ve felt- I’ve felt- rage watching from Jerusalem, as our border patrol man, was kidnapped from his jeep, dragged to a police station in the new nation of Palestine, and ripped apart alive, right in front of my eyes, as a whole village of supposed human beings cheered and danced, mindless to anything except mob emotion… which has been praised by Arafat as -indomitable spirit

I am a part of- the nation called Israel, watching television as we did a surgical strike. The next day on that same police station…after we’d given a warning to clear it …and it was empty… we took out the second story cleanly, where they’d started torturing our man. I watched- I watched on the television screen, as in an overlay of English print-CNN was screaming – was proclaiming that we were bombing the innocent Palestinian populace…. Yet-again

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I’ve seen- The way that an Arab crowd turns into an Arab mob, especially at a funeral… Someone will start shooting into the air and suddenly everyone is hysterical… ripping their clothes off, screaming incessantly, throwing themselves on the coffin, having to be dragged off, screaming all kinds of invective, screaming so loud…who knows when anyone will ever feel sad or anything at all, besides this drama… I’ve felt- I’ve felt- what it’s like to be a part of crowds like this… because I’ve been a part of crowds like this….an observer. I’ve been a part-of this culture, this people, to see, to feel, to be a part of; to know what is behind the headlines… …and when I saw-the newspaper headline…”Arafat is dead”… you can’t imagine how much I …………………………………………

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The Dubbke The muscled white sides of the stallion/groom heave- his shirt/skin sticking to him through the sweat and the noise; shots fired through a hail of candy-thrown as- he stands tethered in his finery- shaking the bells on either side of his face- flanked by his two brothers-black and grey- nostrils flaring- as they wait for the white bride-coming. Led in a spray of palm branches, flowers, and thrown candies- from the other side of the village- she emerges- from behind the mirage of the sun’s flare- emerges-an oasis of beauty, at age nineteen- to toil the sands of the fields- of her husband’s dreams. The pink and black striped dancing woman at the front of the solemn/gay procession, whirls, waving palm branches, whirls, like a dervish, or dust dervish, she whirls, ululating- the drums’ heads pounded by palms, coated with shouts and wedding baksheesh, candy thrown out of windows and doors, pouring down from the skies, onto the wedding procession…

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Shouts and shots and candy, ```\\\‘‘//\\```~~~~\\// \\ `` whirl madly in the air Mustaches/masculinity/ man/men/ ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /////////////////////////////////// run/exit/jump/…..walk out of doors cross paths-bend low- and ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////// pull out handkerchiefs, waved in one hand- the other hand- pounding a drum- waving a sword- shots- shouts- - wind- line up-////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////bending rhythms- thrown to the sky-////////////////////////////// bowed to the earth winding like a river-///////// heave up through the village fed by pouring floods- pouring out of open doors… The village- fed by- pouring floods- pouring out of open doors- byways and side ways of the village currents//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

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.The village rises in a mighty washing wave of groaning////////spewing mono toned incantations in bended rhythm- thrown to the skies/////////////// bowed to the earth’s cogs-heave up; spewing along the colors of the bride’s blush in a lava flow//////////////////// which will leave a permanent caste of the life of the village in the dust.

Henna Henna seeds ground to a paste-stirred with fine oil- applied in stars and moons…in hands against the evil eye to the skin of the bride… and then the groom… in two separate rooms… the scent of jasmine and coffee flows…between the …window …and the door… “Khalil, Khalil”…blow your flute…blow a melody …onto the dreams of the bride…send a new white stallion …to the groom. The moon hangs over…white… in the night sky …the air heavy with orange blossoms… Abir…with kohl rimmed eyes…heavy with her first child… peers… out from… behind her veil. Henna ground into a paste…… applied in stars and moons…in hands against the evil Eye …to the skin of the mother…as the moon peers… down from …behind its veil of cloud…heavy… the air …scented and soft… with orange blossoms……… Sami paints patterns with henna…on the white flanks of the Stallion…paints kohl…around the eyes of… the Running Wind whistles and…sings to his favorite…as he puts on the red woven halter with bells attached all up and along the Desert Wind’s face…the beautiful moon faced Arabian’s face…like a sand dune…under the white moon… the smell of the slaughtered lamb… strong.

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The Price of an Identity Housing Kumron Scrolls

Villagers crossing over bulldozed entrance to village

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Security well for throwing unexploded bombs into

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The Price of an Identity The Baptist, the Methodist, and the American tourist ask me If I speak Israeli, Jewish, or worse yet-Do I speak Israel…...? uneducated questions that run around in my head like un-cashed checks; irritating me, as unhealthy as an un-drained swamp. I stand idly staring out the hot windowsill of the bus- see shimmering in the heat, a mirage from Hell; Teddy Kolleck Stadium, straining in the 120 degree of heat- that hasn’t let up in ten days. We all sweat in the non air-conditioned bus; the flare of the sun on the glass of the window… almost a prophesy. Maybe we haven’t listened enough to our prophets, to our inner selves, to our moral... Light onto the Nations… ingrained into us by our ethical founding fathers ….inner selves. They were the innocent. ..We are the indubitably, inexorably……………..experienced

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Having undergone that furnace that wiped off our faces, and those of our sisters/ our grandfather’s- haunting melody… played on a Ghetto violin...turned to ash- while the world stood by and boogied… while our people burned… and while world leaders who were…

“technically unable to burn the crematoria” …very handily bombed the tire factory a block away from the smoking chimneys… of our sweet mother’s burning ashes… Who are we to trust, who are we to believe? What tourist’s questions are we obliged – to answer? Scored by the primal memories of the burned we are deeply impressed with the knowledge that we are alone in the world and that if on anyone we can depend only on each other…… on our own country… on our own selves.

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The world tendering unto us , the “Israels”, wounding questions…………… when we have to fight………… when we always have to fight… Hell…. when our children will have to fight … when we are dead……. When we are dead…we will be their burned memories.

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Architectural politic. I stand on the bus in unquenched heat, thinking of my friend Pasqual- of all the politics that he went painfully blasting through-to design and - get the stadium built. I think about the soccer game that I attended for the dedication of the stadium; Teddy looking much older, doddering- not the Teddy I’d last seen at David’s party. This Teddy looked like he should have been scooped up into the heavens and put out of his misery…along with… an era passing… the country changing.

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An Israeli Born in Morocco

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An Israeli is one who is born in “The Land” who grows up knowing all of the pioneer thinking, about a joyous return to working the land; and …all of the songs and dances performed …at night, after a day of hard labor in the fields… knows about the debates going on around the campfire, and an Israeli is the one gathered in by a rescue operation, or the one like Ruth, who chose to be a part of the Israeli people saying to her-Israeli mother-in-law- “Your people are my people, where you go, I go. Your fate is my fate...Your future my future… and my children’s future” An Israeli is the one who is born in “The land” and who’s first words, whose mother tongue is Hebrew…even though his mother only speaks to him in English. trying to retain another language for him. She speaks to him in English- he answers her in Hebrew

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An Israeli is one who in emerging boyhood is aware of many rich heritages… ..Middle Eastern, European, African, Western... They are combined, and present in his daily life and in his small country. So that when he is young… he’s been on an airplane. If he’s at least two, he will know to ask… what language they speak? in the country that they are visiting. He may even ask what the currency exchange rate is … because as an Israeli, he is acutely aware of being surrounded on all sides by hostile neighbors, by closed borders and…that getting into places like: Syria and Iraq, is not possible- except through imagination, or perhaps the subterfuge of going out of Israel on his Israeli passport, then turning around, and using his American or European passport, to get into Damascus… An Israeli is one who because of the above, needs to get out, to explore… He’ll explore every nook and cranny of anyplace- that he can get in. An Israeli is one who after the obligatory army stint, and the even more obligatory need to be available on a few hours’ notice, to come back to defend loved ones in case a war is about to occur-without notice. ..as it surely is…

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After spending his boyhood wandering and becoming familiar with every centimeter of his country…… laying overlays of history on top of a topical map, military...or not- which might be called studying religion and the Bible- but which is not. It is merely called history… or an in depth account of your Aunt Ruth’s life. An Israeli, after spending his years of emergence into a boy, and then a man…goes off backpacking working his way around the world-goes anywhere, and everywhere… setting up his falafel stand in China, or Japan. Maybe he learns another language in his traveling time- - Japanese or Chinese. An Israeli is one who could have had an Arab doctor for his step father- …not likely, right? who slipped in and out of both Jewish and Arab cultures, like a banana, slipping out of its peel to sunbath naked... …not likely right? And an Israeli as described, grew up with this situation, and is comfortable with the situation, unlike his mother, who ultimately could not handle this situation, of Jew married to Arab; of cat to dog-and who chose not to have children with her Arab doctor husband…knowing by this point that an Arab/Jewish mixture growing up in Israel, would be deeply hurt-turning on itself…and her ideals of a peaceful marriage in Israel, totally impossible at this time and at all future foreseeable times An Israeli is the one, who, standing on the balcony grilling steaks-is approached by her 4 year old son who …has been well warned, and is well aware of the possibility, of a bomb set by a terrorist…to end his young life

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He comes up to you in your own back yard, and tugs on your hand, pointing to an unidentified object, in his own back yard, and asks… “Imma, is that heftez hashooed… (a suspicious object)?” An Israeli is the same son, two years later- who with his mother...keeps shifting routes around the blockaded way, trying to get home, spending an afternoon doing this… in what is usually a fifteen minute bus ride. So the afternoon is spent threading their way around the ever moving roadblocks ...as soldiers try to locate the third terrorist from the attack in the morning... A few suspicious items have been blown up by detonator robots … and he knows what these robots are for… what they are doing, having no false illusions of safety. After every attack the truly undaunted Israeli will go dafka (no translation) to buy coffee at the coffee bar that was blown up in the morning’s attack… He’ll order four cups… and he’ll sit there and drink them all with his friends, while… inside he cries for the latest victims. Between himself and his friends, three are known personally…

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An Israeli is one who ultimately can never leave his country… He can physically leave Israel... But Israel can never be removed from out of him… Every inch of the country that he’s walked with the scouts, or with friends, or by himself, has become a part of him… every bit of his blood that he sank into Israel, became a part of him… rooting him to Israel, whether he wills it …or he wills it not to be…...like this. There have been plenty of times when he has not been at war … when he’s sail surfed or dived the Gulf of Eilat... He knows every stone in the desert… ….and every stone calls to him by name, a piece of his inheritance; the best part of his inheritance… …along with the worst part of his inheritance – mentioned above … and every stone is potentially a new commandment … commanded to him personally.

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Signs Miss-belled… Or If the Choice is Between Grace Juice and Grenade Juice I stand staring at the array of juices on offer, irritated and amazed that as usual in a land where our official languages are Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and all signs are written in two or three languages- it never fails that the English is misspelled. So, I stand staring, like a Tourist in front of the juice bar, amazed. If I know Hebrew, I know that the grace juice on offer is grape juice. I know that the palm juice offered is date juice; that I’m not being offered the grip of someone’s hand. I know that the grenade juice is also pomegranate juice, the word for grenade and pomegranate…being the same ….and...I also know to count 23…24…25...and

Quickly drop to the floor…… …if there really is a grenade on offer

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There’s nothing like being pumped up with air from the pumps of ein brera (no choice)… bli panika (without panic). The baby seal in you notices, that all of the other baby seals, who are about to get knocked on the head, and skinned for their furs; their eyes are bulging out of their heads, in the same sad way… even though their flippers are frantically patting each other on the back, proclaiming yehei beseder (It’ll be all right) (It’ll be all right) Oh yes, in gan we were lifted up on a chair, and paraded around to the cheerful song… Ein brera…bli panika…yehei beseder………… Ein brera…bli panika…yehei beseder…………. When we heard that Iraq, mad at America… decided that we were a closer target, as well as the Satanist ally of you know who… we all bought our tape...taped up our rooms…prepared for a gas attack …suddenly helpful one to another, once again…suddenly as cohesive and cooperative, as super glue…looking quietly at each other in long lines; helping the old lady to get her gas mask and be on her way home with her large roll of tape in hand we fortify and pass on the message… Ein brera...bli panika…yehei beseder….. Ein brera...bli panika…yehei beseder...

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Only in extreme situations… like when our son can’t find his shoes to go on a school trip...so we’re going to be five minutes late… do we shut ourselves in the nearest closet, behind the nearest closed door… sobbing quietly under our breathes,

so that no one can hear…. “Ma yehei (What will be?) Ma yehei ba sof (What will be in the end?) We who have been brought up in the tradition of le histader- ( to take care of oneself)

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We Faint and Shrug Our Shoulders… Rich in emotions, terse in speech- our eyes like leaden marble… smolder- shift shapes with each change- inside an army on alert- …in the arms and hips of a belly dancer who spits sweet myrrh from her sweat… from those hips that roll and grind through in occupation In the papered poems of Amichai- speaking of himself, of us in twenty-nine languages. We faint, and shrug our shoulders, …bearing arms once again… when …we should be bearing children.

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Tower of Babel, Achieved in One Anna speaks nine languages: Spanish, Russian, Belgian English, Hebrew, German French, Italian, Portuguese There’s a certain symmetry in this tower-while at the Eurovision- Israel’s entrant sings… Chai, chai, chai, Am Israel od chai (lives, lives, lives; the people of Israel still lives) Yes, in pieces and coinage of Jews- that fled and loved in whatever refuge- and arms they could find that would accept, their God, as God- is one Your God is my God, said Anna’s Spanish, Russian, German mother, to her German, Italian, Cuban, Chinese father- and you are safe, they said to their emigrating Italian American children- laying their caressing reassurance, on their children’s brows in Shabbat blessing- they say-“Chai, chai, chai, Am Israel od chai” “Chai, chai, chai, Am Israel od chai”

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A Sense of History; of Continuity Gained from… an unsounded depth and breadth of experience is buried in the dirt… rearing itself up in the sandcastles of the aqueducts, that have outlasted any other castle built, that water our heads, if only by sight, or touch; sand colored Braille postcards; Roman accounts of living in this land, launching themselves at us- no matter what path we take to the milk house- or the Knesset- lived in by so many sandals and shoes, including that of our own people… Draining swamps, plowing out the dream, the strict morality of Zionism, that most absolute of Goods, in a head ruled and populated by goods, if not reality. Sweating, tired, and drained by bouts of recurring malaria, my grandfather could have given a shit about-accidentally discovering the floor of a sixth century synagogue-while digging an irrigation ditch. It stirred no nostalgic feeling of prayerful reverence for him- Connected no dots… between him and David ha Melech (David the King) I am different….and I am from a different generation.

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Here, yesterday, during my walk in Ein Gedi… Here, where only yesterday, ..Saul raged at David, looking for him, chasing him through the caves- through which David ran, like the gazelle, whose rapidly disappearing rump, I am contemplating now. ..Saul drew out and threw his hunting knife- nicking the rock, here, just here. ..If David isn’t careful, tomorrow Saul will hit him. His spear point will lodge exactly in that notch in the cave wall

… over… there… which I run my tongue and teeth over, just to get the taste of their argument

between my eyes.

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The Population’s Density

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The Population’s Density… We are counted the most densely populated European nation, our population packed into the narrow coastal strip from Haifa…

…through Tel Aviv… to Jerusalem. We are used to bumping elbows, having an Uzi … stuck into our faces on the bus…, rubbing noses, rubbing elbows …, getting our hair ... snagged in each other’s buttons. The guy behind you is reading your paper with you. The one sitting at the table across from you makes sure to get your attention… by giving his approval to you

… for the fact that you are eating. We are in Gan together at age two. We go to scouts together, to the army together.

We don’t go walking alone. We don’t go on a trip alone.

This feeling of being a part of one another, carries us through the wars and the terrorist attacks (because) when one of us is hit…

we all feel it.

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The Population’s Density Calls for …Pelephones But then in 1995 we invented that pelephone (…that miracle phone…) And now all of Israel is on dial tone. Walk down Ben Yehuda Street and you will see an Ethiopian wearing a kippa sitting on a bench.. .talking loudly into his pelephone… (You can’t convince me that he………… is not assimilated) sitting next to that very loud blonde woman…

…also talking on her pelephone.

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There is Shimon…

walking down Hillel Street…

no longer being talked to by everyone who meets his eye… but rather being an uninvited listener to……………a conversation…………………………………... ……between that guy and someone else he

can’t see…… but he can hear every detail.

Shimon is annoyed. And Shimon is feeling another strange feeling.

…………………………….. ….Shimon is feeling lonely.

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And everyone is a Stranger (Immigrant Blues) With fond memories of Mitchell as a newcomer

Your wife is screaming in your ear that you don’t make her the center of attention, when she’s having a hard time.

You just keep standing there with your eyes closed, … your boundaries dissolved. You’ve always been on guard, watched your back. You’ve never felt anything like you feel now. All the familiar symbols that you could hide yourself/ behind …..gone…… done.

…You’re so blown out from this change in location. You cannot maintain a blank façade. You’re no longer one dimensional…a face on a postcard.

And it’s your eyes that can be read… … in spite of yourself, crying, ” I’m the outsider. How do I ask for things?”

…Israel will cure you. Israel will define you. Israel will force you out into the open. You have choices to make. You can’t run away. Israel is in your face. Israel is your face. You were not sent to the wrong address.

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A Postcard from There to Here (you) You don’t remember the landing, the airport, ..the entry or… the stamped immigration visa but you seem to be legal, even as your eyes meet only with strangers in offices. Yes, I catch the scene; you are the postcard sent from there to here. The postscript is not saying… “Having such a great time!” Standing in line in this foreign place that you’re supposed to call the homeland, You’re feeling like a helpless kid. The bank turned you down for credit because of some papers that haven’t arrived yet. In vain you explained that you’re… the new Senior Vice President of this Jerusalem Company written up in the New York Times. They’ve just made you feel like you’re five years old and that … you’ve wet your pants in public… and now you don’t have any money…

…to buy food for Shabbat. You’re certainly not going to cry… …in front of all …….these strangers.

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The Film That Sent Nathan to Hollywood Coco ben tcha eshrai Coco at nineteen… Nathan and his friend formed a co- op that made and distributed Coco’s story. Critical reports, but poor receipts- this is supposedly what drove Nathan out of Israel and into…

Hollywood

Or was it that… Nathan’s father fell and died; choking on his own blood, in one of the wars- before Nathan was old enough to remember him.

Which war was that?

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…You’re Going

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From a Journal Entry-To a son

I trust you explaining to me the things that you’re doing now; containing yourself- with admirable self control, about various family pain. I know that you are trying

to reach out beyond that.

On a lesser level- You are acting a lot like me at your age- the way I am or was- not wanting to “inconvenience” your father or grandfather, who thought nothing of using money, that was supposed to be yours- to be put into trust for you. Instead they used your money and stood by… watching you live a hard life.

I don’t encourage you to hate- but I don’t encourage you to be walked on either. It took me longer to learn this lesson.

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I am a part of the hard stuff. But I believe in, acknowledge, the greatness of your soul. I can’t guarantee its fruition…but I believe that you can. I don’t have to tell you about having a thirst for life… …and making mistakes. You’ve seen me flying…and swimming through … often enough. I am part of the hard stuff…and you probably were ready, …many times to scream out in your youth… that you could be my mother, better… than I could be…yours. And you could have been right. …But you were also wrong, because, I know, that somewhere… all along, I cherished and wished, to nourish… the greatness of your soul. I can’t guarantee…its fruition, but I believe…that you can.

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Birthday Remembrances- April 19th

You were the first Eden in Israel. Well not the first, the second… but the first in Israel. In the first moments, after you were born, the midwife slid you right onto my belly, to re-occupy the space that you’d just left; the outside contour, of the inside, where you’d just come from. I remember a surprised feeling, that someone had slid a wet puppy onto me.

You were quite beautiful, even from the start. You were born, on the afternoon of the Eve of Pessach. With great reluctance, I left you in the hospital nursery, and went off to a Seder. I was the only one who really had to, recline for the Seder.

When you were six weeks old, I photographed you in the bath. That’s the black and white photo of a close up of your face. Obviously, you still had memories, of living in the waters inside. You have a look on your face of being an underwater astronaut. I probably

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should have… taught you to swim then. Nine months old… You were running around at that age. You were very precocious, physically. When you were three months old, you tried to crawl fast, by lifting both hands off the floor, at once. You’d end up banging your chin into the floor (marble), scream, and do it again. You held yourself up, standing by the bars of the crib, at six months, when, you’re supposed to still be sitting.

You walked at nine months… then proceeded to run.

You went to the Ein Kerem, slightly outrageous gan at nine months. Israeli parents are notoriously permissive. I was an Israeli parent. I remember all the kids out on the lawn, dancing under a hose, without any clothes on. This gan was started by two girls, who, had graduated from Hoffen, which was basically a teacher’s school, designed to teach people, how to do “free” schools, in Israel. You, were often the freest of the spirits in the gan. They said that you were a litzan (a clown), a tzaakhan (an actor), amusing everyone in the place; a natural actor, doing everything afouk (the opposite) of anyone else.

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If others, were listening to a story… you’d be dancing. If others, were…. Well you get the picture. They say that you lived to the beat of your own drummer. Prophetic words, since you later, loved drums so much.

You also loved dogs. When we went into a park one day when you were eleven months old, and some large dogs, very large dogs, were running around; you also ran around, and played with them. When they knocked you down by accident, you laughed… and when they rolled you around, tickling you with their noses, you laughed. This fondness of dogs carried on.

You remember when you were eleven, and you ran out of the stone walls surrounding our house, and Yoshko’s dog bite you- hard on the arm. You ran in to show me that you hadn’t really gotten any bites, because you had on a heavy jacket, and ….. “not to punish the dog, because, it was your fault, startling the dog, by appearing so suddenly, in the opening of the wall”

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You had a thing for talking to food, especially lachmaniahs or large sausages. I have a photo of you at nine months at Rutti Behari’s house.

Her daughter Sheera, was hugging cutey you ..and you… You were busy, talking quite intensely to the lachmania in your hand. Really, you look like you’re doing Hamlet’s soliloquy… you know the one that goes, “To eat you, or not to eat you, that is the question”

You were built very beherion (sturdy). You also had very beautiful blond curls, that I delayed cutting. Whenever we went into the bank, or supermarket, people would be all over you going putzy motzy, trying to get a piece of you.

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We lived in Charm O Sheik for a year, from the time that you were one and a half, until you were two and a half. I made all of your clothes, embroidering everything. A guy called Phillip, made you some beautiful handmade leather shoes, with cutouts of flowers? Stars? Of course, this is the age when you experimented with scissors and matches. Once, I found you after, you’d cut a big chunk out of your bangs. Once, you set your jalabeya on fire. I didn’t make the jalabeya. I got it from my Bedouin friend. When I found you, when you set yourself on fire, I found you quickly enough- that you’d only burned a hole through the knee- which I patched. I still have the jalabeya. The clothes that I embroidered for you, I gave to my friend Jaclyn, when she was expecting a new baby. Do you remember running around with a half Jewish/ half Bedouin boy in Charm O Sheik? I doubt it. I introduced you to……the Arab part of our Semitic story…very early on.

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To a child asleep

I look at the dozens of little black scorpions, come out of the nest, shining and polished, skidding across the moonlit floor… forming silent orchards of armored knights. raising their tails to sting. Thinking of my son asleep upstairs I raise the heavy book overhead and let it crash to the floor.

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Jewish children

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Arab children

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Cycles and Loves

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Basic Black, the Moon I look up at the moon, pale disc sliced thin on a chilly desert night. The moon reminding me of a primal sea, of a well drilled deep into being, all of us enveloped in basic black, in fear of ceasing to exist, of obliteration. Like a new moon, a no moon- if I approach you from behind- I perceive you first like a curtain closed, but then you turn around your eyes blazing out from the black cloud, black and surprising, like one of those holes in the universe. So, look up at the moon, look up at the precious setting; the silver sliver set with precision against an obsidian black sky. Take my hand; hold tight and with the fiery darkness, think of black holes in the universe, not crippled by doubt.

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Rosh Hodesh Rosh Hodesh, the celebration of the new moon’s cycle is a Jewish woman’s celebration. It is the time when my daughter, my friend, myself, and my mother, start to bleed…the blood … in synchronized tide.

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Kill the Moonlight

Do you want me to look at you like I just found a long ago used up out-of town bus ticket in my pocket? When did I go there? Why? Prometheus shed many a tear, many a painful tear. He burned his hand playing with matches. But he wasn’t sorry. He was never sorry. The girl in the gold borsalino, doesn’t look like she spends her days, dissecting things. Rather she has the look of the night- of wheels and whirling. Go ask her to throw a glass of water in our faces, and to please bring on the night.

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A Poem about You Running and thinking about me, passing Migdal, and still running on, feeling, thinking about us, full of effort, full of need, and wanting, and unable to outrun what is unneeded; unnecessary in your life whether merely benign, or purely hurtful, and you run on, the going not too hard, running with it, the it of existing, the running, the identity, the identifying of life through the feeling of running, until you hit kilometer 36, and then what? the pain, but running on, knowing that you cannot run straight…into my arms… at the finish line, or at any point in the race, as I am busy with my own running, running in place, and you run on, holding onto your pain for later, and I run with you, and you run with me, but where is this maslool, this lane where we are running together? and where we run on alone, to get to this place where we can be together? Migdal, flashing past, caught out of the corner of the eye, flashing past, caught in a smile running on, running on, hands joined, running on, running for our lives, running for the sake of our life together, even if the maslool is only existing in the shared soul, running…on

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A Golden String from David’s Harp

You are a golden string from David’s harp; joining everything together with strength, with a powerful glue… that joins this day, a weekday; that joins this day, the Holy Shabbat; in our bodies sung- in our souls strung- together...with wisdom- with the ability (le hav cheen) to judge the difference, the depth... the join, between… the mundane and the Holy... Braided, braided… repeated, repeated sung, sung… the golden strings from David’s harp… plucked, sung, …woven between us into a Havdalah candle

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Kohl Rimmed Eyes Olive oil, finely beaten, spun between the golden weight of the infinite lime stones of the press; pressing virgin sighs back into amber colored bottles of prayer beads, squeezed between fingers oozing henna from the painted signature of the betrothal party, smelling on the desert wind a crest of scent and smile from the East…

Black kohl rimmed eyes shining out from the small shining brown body of my infant love, naked except for the scarlet amulet wrapped around his wrist and ankle to ward off the sailing blue eye…

The black-liquid pools/eyes of obsidian melted and grown hot again-melting the kohl ringed protection and magic swirls of the trumpeting sheik-racing his camel against the East-West-North-South. The sheep of his flock, rich cream/ his loves breasts/ cushions sitting on heaps of lapis lazuli; the hills on which his tent is pitched

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The Log be Omer Fires Leap…

just like the children, …in hurrying, noisy clamor… after the last un-salvaged board from …the new construction site. In merry conflagration… they light up the neighborhoods… the skies- …like thousands of sparking stars.

They light up the hills… passing the messages of the fires… as each potato wrapped in shiny foil… is tucked in… blanketed by glowing embers. Scout and pioneer songs are sung-

…..long past any child’s bedtime- as multiple generations hurl sticks onto the flames, holding each other in close armed encirclement- lit from within, by the light… flowing up the long tee-peed skirt, of the curling, hurling, thousands of glowing lips of celebration.

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The Eve before the Eve of Pessach- I love to wander through the streets and alleys of Jerusalem. I make the rounds to all the restaurants… to the humble falafel stand… on the corner of Ben Yehuda and Hillel Street- to the grand façade and glitter of… Kinoor David (David’s Violin) -at the King David… to The Cow on the Roof… (across from YMCA)... to Dalia Reynaud...to the Tsiriff... to the Mifgash ha Esh … where last year I met and spoke to Martin Indyk- on his way to a grand peace council in Charm O’Sheik… …That was last year and tonight’s tonight- What makes this night different from … any other night?

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Tonight, humble or grand- close to midnight, and for long hours afterwards- the restaurant owners and chefs, have emptied out their pantries; laying or tumbling their huge copper pans and pots out onto the streets- laying them out onto the cobbled streets, or inner courtyards- each and every one engaged in an immense labor- scouring the huge pots and pans, and cauldrons- with scalding, steaming water- bending their backs to their work of cleansing the cookware for the coming- seven days, and seven nights- the stiff wire brushes that they’re using, to polish the gleaming pots into- an even more gleaming order

(Seder)…..

Tonight-Jerusalem- not Jerusalem of Gold; but gleaming down long streets, down hidden- winding alleys and cul-de-sacs… the shine and early morning song of a- Jerusalem of brass and copper, shining: Jerusalem of brass and copper, shining

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The taste of time The Feast of Freedom The line between the promised and the boundary… of the new ways of our love story, has been written in blood; drawn up into the flight feathers, of one of our hawks, not the dove sent out by Jonah.

That was a different promise that the dove was looking for signs and completion of... a different promised land.

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If the result of my loving you, of my touching your life, changing it, causes the blossoming-opening of a blood red poppy, or even the rearing up of the blood red head of … a Maccabee… bringing its message now of the flight or fight …for freedom…so be it.

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The Feast of the Un-pursued

You know how much I love you. It was me personally, who painted on an arc of blood over your door, so that you would be spared the death of the first born on this night… The Angel of Death… will brush your door with her wings in passing, ….but my love, will keep you safe, …will lead you out the door, and will set you on your way, onto the path that you must go… Take a few deep breaths, and feel me around you, as you drink the various glasses of wine tonight. Take deep breathes and feel me touching you… on the shoulder… on the forehead. I am making invisible reminder markings, there in reminder that you were born to lead… and not to follow. Whether the markings…are in blood, or tears, or kisses ……matters not

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Bruised Time( thyme) Your mouth descends covering mine with an intensity tasting, working releasing into the air (the fair) the good scent of thyme the trodden upon scent of time… kissed thoroughly by a bee sting… released into the air (the fair, the yareed)… the good scent of time... provided, loved by, and molded to heel to… kissed by a rough and silken man (you) smiling with his mouth (you) afraid with his eyes (you) unmasked in his need (you) Needing, tasting, working... releasing into the air (the fair) the good scent of thyme the trodden upon scent of time… as I propose marriage (now) (now) wrapping you up in my tallit. I ate you yesterday. I’m eating you when I’m born. I ate you when I died….. wrapped up in a pita and…the fair taste, the good taste of thyme (time)

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The Fig Tree and the Boy Jonah sitting in its Shade

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The boy was often obstinate, Not listening to what he didn’t want to hear. He would scowl, his dark hair hanging in his eyes; breaking a branch off of the fig tree, scratching around in the dust, when he especially didn’t want to listen.

He had an adversity to water, loved the dust; the dusty bloom of a different kind over the figs when they were in season… He ate as many as he could fit into his belly, of the round sleek purple blue fruit, until his belly was a picture in kind of the figs that he had stuffed inside; the dust and the purple fallen fruit that his eager mouth and hand hadn’t found, coated the bottoms of his sandals and the toes on his feet.

…Jonah spent many hours under his fig tree, watching other children play and go by him, like ships out of the port of Jaffa…not talking to them, or partaking of their games, never revealing to them… what he thought, ….never once saying “I want to play that too!”

He was a silent and secretive boy, but he loved his spot under the tree in the dust… and every year waited for the reappearance of the herds …and crop of purple fruit.

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He had an aversion to water and was a pessimist about mankind’s chances at an early age…no child of mercy.

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Bat Sheva’s Loofa Bat Sheva was advised of a ham sin… … of a fast approaching dust storm as she was choosing/was chosen… that day… to bath on the roof of her house …in full view of David’s entranced eyes. As he gazed out of his bedroom window… that day… …as at first he was only musing …on his soldiers and generals sent out to do battle for him… That was at first. It was very hot. There was a ham sin… and there was a dust storm …fast approaching from the East. Sweat was collecting in his darkly anointed ringlet-ed head as he shook it to clear it of a stray thought… and then …he saw her …that day…as she was choosing/was chosen…

… (that day).

Bat Sheva was sixteen… safely married to one of David’s generals. She was very hot and sweating too… unused … to staying indoors so long-…so idle in the heat. She’d grown up in the provinces outside Jerusalem,

…and was used to roaming… and running the hills freely, as if she was a shepherd girl, …as David had been a shepherd boy…on that day…

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…as David had been a shepherd boy…on that day… on that day, when he slew Goliath with a sling shot…and a well aimed rock. …On that day when she roamed the hills and laughed freely, and was free… …and she was remembering, and sweating, and laughing, and whispering freedom’s remembered memories as she picked up the loofa from the rose petal scented water, and ran lightly, flinging it full force at her serving maiden, in an explosion of the plucking of David’s harp(heart) string as David shock his head in disbelief… …as he saw Bat Sheva…in all of her beauty …from the distance at which he once faced Goliath in all of his largeness …on that day………………………… David shook his head again to clear it ….…but it was already too late.

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