Scrapbook of Kiev Published in Flashquake Fall 2011
“the poplars gather in a a crowd /wearily on the conquered pavement.
You make me think the Dnieper there, / in its green skin of creeks and ditches”
- Pasternak, “You're Here”
Pasternak, you make me think green Kiev – I see it wake
From its sleep, the Dnieper in ditches and creeks.
Who breathes the selfsame air? And whose presence made you sketch
The city as a stand of poplars, a complaint book?
You build a city of lazy sunbeams wrapped in a brick
Collar, a catalog of sweating leaves in a green skin.
The river writes a chronicle, your A to Z scrapbook
Fills with someone's nearness, hastily inscribed at daybreak.
I hear the voice of Kiev, the Ukrainian landscape looks
Out from your words and the scent of my great-grandmother's baking.
The pulse of the trees, the water, the sunbeams that flicker
Outside the window lure me to imagine your Ukraine.
Not your Russia, that pruned your words and urged you to give back
The Nobel Prize, that American literary prank.
Geneva wouldn't take it back, though you couldn't make
The award ceremony and kept your pride in it cloaked.
I want to write the nearness of your words here, to crack
The rebus of your city, take it apart and build it back.
“the poplars gather in a a crowd /wearily on the conquered pavement.
You make me think the Dnieper there, / in its green skin of creeks and ditches”
- Pasternak, “You're Here”
Pasternak, you make me think green Kiev – I see it wake
From its sleep, the Dnieper in ditches and creeks.
Who breathes the selfsame air? And whose presence made you sketch
The city as a stand of poplars, a complaint book?
You build a city of lazy sunbeams wrapped in a brick
Collar, a catalog of sweating leaves in a green skin.
The river writes a chronicle, your A to Z scrapbook
Fills with someone's nearness, hastily inscribed at daybreak.
I hear the voice of Kiev, the Ukrainian landscape looks
Out from your words and the scent of my great-grandmother's baking.
The pulse of the trees, the water, the sunbeams that flicker
Outside the window lure me to imagine your Ukraine.
Not your Russia, that pruned your words and urged you to give back
The Nobel Prize, that American literary prank.
Geneva wouldn't take it back, though you couldn't make
The award ceremony and kept your pride in it cloaked.
I want to write the nearness of your words here, to crack
The rebus of your city, take it apart and build it back.
Leaving Be'er Sheva Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize, UC Berkeley, 2002
“’take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriya and offer him there as an offering
on one of the mountains which I will tell you about’ . . .
And on the third day Avraham lifted up his eyes
and saw the place from a far.” (Genesis 22:2)
“whatever comes out of the doors of my house to me when I return . . .
I will offer it up as an offering . . . And Yiftach came to Mitzpe to his house,
and there his daughter came out to meet him, with timbrels and dances.” (Judges 11: 31-34)
Naive as a ewe flock I stood looking
out over the Negev, facing North,
judging the Judean hills’ white length.
It took us three days journey walking
to reach the peaks I see in the distance
and the arid sands stretching out before us.
As I stepped down to face the hazy light
the dry desert air sliced across my eyes
tinting all crimson with the flush of tears;
red waves to swallow up the desert white.
My vision came clear and I was seeing
omens to visit an unnamed mountain.
Called Mount Moriya in verse and we followed
to a place we were shown, toting incense
wood and flame for the fire. The angels,
the ram came later. We sought to hollow
out a groove within the rock, to hallow
that space we were given with our marrow,
To sanctify our fate against the sky.
The wadi’s clay confetti hue washes
across windowsills, over eyelashes,
copper dust mascara to frame the eye.
In red bright iron the vision wavers.
I dream that I am Isaac being offered.
O Yiftach, give me back who I was
before the dance, before the white solstice,
before the gleam of the slaughtering blade
carved out our destiny in granite lines.
Be’er Sheva gleaming in the light of dawn -
Our schismed legacies becoming one.
Field Trip to Museum Row Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize, UC Berkeley, 2002
My eye catches on a curved
scarab oval, encrested,
a name stamp no larger than
a victorian button.
No starched shirt wearer carved this
relic or that earthen vase
from the city where I sprawl
on the pedestrian strip,
Drinking Turkish coffee and
seeking prophetic vision.
Museums seem extraneous
against Jerusalem white stones.
History itself lives here
in ancient walls laid bare
to stand against the noon sun.
What can pottery shards say
To the capital’s craggy
and eternal legacy,
the stubborn bushes that sprout
from within the solid rock?
Out of Jaffa Published in The Body Inside Sidewalks give way to sand warm winds breathe, caress my face. Underneath us lies a desert, unconquerable, ancient. My pace softens, the militant stride drops. Caution slides away where the coast surfaces. Even under concrete the shore knows who she is; how the sea defines her. I intuit a closeness here: the fine edge between this land and I, nearing what I feel for you. |
Tel Aviv Melody Published in BigCity Lit The Mediterranean sea murmurs its subtle verses and the clinging sand, no counter of miles or hours, sticks to foot sole, rock and water. This narrow stretch of shore meanders south to Jaffa. Inland, cross the street to the city where any alleyway may lead you to spring parks blooming, a nature trail mere strides from the freeway, or a tiny synagogue where voices chant Sephardic cadences of lyrics from a time long ago. There used to be a verb: to walk down this street, 'lidzengoff. . to see and be seen: 'To Dizengoff': to stroll the avenues, cut a swath across the metropolis, pass the trendy boutiques, wedding gown displays, the multi-tiered mall, crepes, juice stalls, pizza, synchronized leaping water fountains. The whole motley collage of scents, colors, sounds. And now to Shuk ha-Carmel, where sellers in stalls offer books, shirts, eclectica. Then over to Shenkin, the hip fashion center. I walk here only Seeing, being seen. To Tel Aviv should be a verb: 'letelaviv' . . to be called to this city, to hear its voices ceaselessly, to live only within its gates. O Tel Aviv, I hear your clear melody. It reaches me even here in California. And it is no mere matter of clicking ruby heels together- you fulfill no American Dream. Your call comes as alarm. I know your dangers they are not few. Yet at your word I am ready to leave behind all I know just to 'lidzengoff, within your walls, ‘letelaviv.’ |
How It Happened Featured at Miriam Books I was the innocent Serpent, changing skins, Offering you the fruit Plucked ripe from The flowering tree Of knowing good And evil. You spoke In tongues, All your own, yet Your mother tongue Eludes you, lost Somewhere among The pomegranate fields. Now I live Closer to the ground. |
Jerusalem perches Featured at Miriam Books on fault lines running millenia deep and kilometers wide the city neither slumbers nor sleeps lest some hairline fracture should slip beyond its vigilance. It is quiet with the sound of a thousand borders stretching to breaking point at every angle. The Call of Bells I hear the carillon bells Chime the hour The way the fog Carries sounds Across my hometown From the university Bell tower, or The dawn muezzin Peals that ring Through Jerusalem With the odd bleat Of a sheep, a wandering Goat, a penitent kneeling In prayer. The elision of Sounds, a call to a city That beckons me home. |