The Pomegranate: Love and Women Poems

Part One

LOVE POEMS

 
     
                                   Enjoy life with a woman you love
                                   all the days of your life.
                                                  Ecclesiastes 9:9

     

                         
Cakes and Poems
     
               You brought the cake,
               and I the poem.
               We read the cake, and ate the poem.
     
               My wishes pass
               as through pierced ear-lobes.
               So much helpless groping
               to keep us more together,
               to walk beyond the sidewalks.
               To make whole.
     
               I see a postage stamp world
               where your postcard
               has not arrived.
               Sometimes a green bile stone,
               sometimes a song.
     
               White magnolias break into my night.
               Above all it is your sound I hear.
               I drink the dawn.
               Your sound is a calm river
               of copious silky kisses.
     
               Laughingly, our glances lock.
               It is almost worth parting often,
               to meet again.
               I blow the Shofar.
     
               You will go on bringing the cakes,
                    and I the poems.



                           
In the Sun
     
               She took him
               to the sun
               with a pigeon
               on his shoulder
               a smile in his eye
               a song in his ear,
               clutching his throat
               through the woods
               of trembling --
               where he fell in love
               with his sun-laden dream,
               a ring of laughter
               on his finger,
               a fragrant kiss
               his moist fresh
                    life.



                    
Mount Carmel Pomegranates
     
               The trees smile, the trees laugh, the trees sign,
               and every pomegranate on Haifa's Mount Carmel,
               peals its love song:
               take her tenderly by the hand
               wherever you go,
               she is part of you
               we are witness.
     
               The trees whisper,
                    the trees weep,
                         the trees sleep,
               when he goes
               and leaves her smile behind,
               awakes at morning
               in a snow land
               kissing his  own
                    cold hand...



               
The Marriage of Science and Poetry
     
          "For the sciences of nature... man, once again, meets only with himself."
                       Heisenberg.

          Mr. Heisenberg, notable shadkhan,
          Science to Poetry benevolently presented.
          For Science it was love at first sight,
          but while he persisted the lady held back and desisted.
          "Our impulses are parallel," he argued and pleaded,
          "Although our methods and tools are divergent,
          we both want to probe the actuality of things
          to investigate phenomena beyond their surfaces.
          We have so much in common!  For one thing,
          we both use language to communicate."
     
          But, retorted dainty poetry, "You follow the star of stern objectivity
          while I prefer more intimate subjectivity,
          you worship the goddess of reason
          while I bend at the altar of intuition,
          Concrete facts are all you have eyes for
          while I dote on tangible essences,
          Self is my universe and I am embarked
          on a conquest of inner space.
          No!  Material and spirit will never mix."
          This put Science in rather a tight fix.
     
          "The universe inside, and out, is our laboratory,"
          he argued scientifically, sending Poetry flying.
          "But I need you," he cried distractedly "I can't live without you!"
          Then Poetry in her flight arrested, turned, 
          "Is this a fact or an essence?" asked she.
          "I don't know," he answered ruefully, "Both, I think," he added truthfully.
     
          Then smiling she gave him her hand, and through the doors of perception
               together they intuitively and reasonably went.



                           
Broken Wing
     
               When she said
               enough,
               the happy flight in his eye
               broke.
               She could hear
               the cracking of the bone,
               shedding of white feathers
               drooping on her flesh,
               fraying the corners of her soul.
     
               The engulfing of her hands
               in his
               did not bring back
               the glimmer in the blue,
               and one of the birds
               in the dense, trembling wood,
               the one with the happiest
               longest whistle,
               stopped its song.
     
               But the maiden with the green eyes
               and dark lashes,
               is not made to be a 
               breaker of wings,
               she is made for song
               and for laughter,
               she yearns for the wings
               to flap again in delight
               in the blue,
               without breaking
                    her own.



             
David and Bat-Sheva's Cave in Ein Gedi
     
               Silvery peach-colored clouds
               Flowing in unending flock-row
               Rippling through ice-cream skies,
               Fusing, mellowing, melting,
               Growing, flowing...
     
               Fresh green baby leaf
               Delicate transparent curves and dimples,
               Softly fragile,
               Waving being in the breeze,
               Growing, flowing...
               Resounding tear in the heart
               Followed by another, and another,
               Moist, spearlike,
               As in dripping cave
               On Ein Gedi's slippery cliff,
               Where David and Bat-Sheva
               loved and hid --
               Growing, flowing,
               Submerging.
     
                                   My beloved is unto me
                                   as a cluster of camphire
                                   in the vineyards of Ein Gedi
                                        Song of Solomon 1:14
     
               Ein Gedi, June 1972.




                     
Clouded Almond Flowers
     
               Your gaze was like almond trees
               on slopes of violet-patched
               Biblical mountains
     
               I touch it still
               as my Jerusalem
               over the amber horizon,
               or dancing cheek to cheek
               "You are part of me."
     
               But now,
               with the rumble of guns,
               the tune of your eyes
               is again heavy-hearted,
               gray clouding
               our almond flowers
     
               Tell me my love,
               how can I
               uncloak the clouds
                    on our white almond flowers?

     
                         
Twigs Not Roses
     
               You hand in my hair 
               planted twigs
               not roses,
               you whispered:
               "there are no roses
               around here
               but you."
               I kissed the 
               twig-bearing hand
               as if it bore
               all the crowns,
               laurels, and flowers
               in the land.
     
               You are the garden
               where I dream
               full of trees, love and roses,
               the lake where I bathe
               among the beams of souvenirs.
               In the heart of my mind
               I again kiss
               the twig-bearing hand
               as if it bore
               the finest ring
               and richest chalet
                    in the land.



                       
The Slits On My Arm
     
               At the traffic light
               of my life,
               when you caressed my hair
               and touched me
               through slits of my cherry shirt
               with gentle silky finger,
               as if there were a rose framed
               in each small window on my arm --
               I drank your sounds deep
               of awakening roses,
               light flowed sky blue
               from your eyes
               and flooded all
               the shimmering tongues
               at the source
                    of my being.



                         
One Way Journey
     
               We have traveled deep,
               There is no return.
     
               Every bone
               of your frame
               has found its nook
               in mine,
               has caught
               cannot let go.
               Every turn of your jaw
               round mine
               has pushed us farther
               on the Carmel lane
               of pomegranate exchange --
               from which there is no return.
     
               No words,
                    no reason,
                         no facts,
                              no laws --
                    Can stop our journey now.



                         
Will Transplant
     
               When you pressed
               your heart
               to mine
               as if to sow it
               under my ribs,
     
                    skin slipped
                    flesh spilt
                    currents flowed
                    measure of muscle
                    to muscle
     
               The surgery was
               clean
               and final --
               our wills
                    transplanted.



                      
Psychological Wooing
     
               I am glad
               he does not
               love
               with his tongue,
               for his words
               can dangle
               forever
               in my veins.
     
                    I am glad
                    he never tells me
                    he loves
                    my face
                    or my body,
                    like he loves
                    the sun, or good wine
               or flowers.
     
               I am glad...
                    then why
                         do I hear in me
                              tears dripping
                                        like rusty leaves?

     
                         
The Three Gowns
     
               I wore the gown 
               of laughter
               and he smiled.
     
                    I wore the gown
                    of passion
                    and he frowned
     
                         I wore the gown
                         of anger
                         and he fled
     
               Calmly
               I re-adopted
               the gown of
               laughter
               adorned with bright
               distant jewels,
               and he came back
               nodding
               a taste of pearl
               moisture
               on his lips.
     
               But --
               why does it not
                    satiate me?



                          
Chest Protest
     
               Interlocked deep,
               curve of chest
               in chest,
               flesh protests against
               apart
               in human sounds --
               knuckles
   
               Cracking:  you are part
               of me.
     
               Bone and muscle
               know
               what we do not fully
                    yet --
                         there should be
                                   no cleft.

     
     
                            
Your Name
     
               Bells in hollows
               peal your name continuously,
               on artists' books,
               on shop signs,
               even on cans.
     
               Landscapes stealthily
               adopt your tones and colors,
               conjuring lithe deer walk,
               secret charm.
     
               The bells play mysterious
               symphonies
               transfusing your sounds
               into blue space
               running
               to my heart.
     
               They are pealing so
               loudly
               now my love,
               can you too
               hear them?
     
                                   My beloved is like a roe
                                   or a young hart:
                                   behold, he standeth behind
                                   our wall
                                             Song of Solomon 2:9

     
     
                         
The Swan Search
     
               I looked for your
               in the streets of Paris,
               every swift, fawn-colored car
               recalled your lithe limbs.
     
               I looked for you in the King's garden
               at Versailles,
               rainbow-colored begonias conjured
               the patterns of our rainbow moments.
     
               I looked for your
               in every Chateau of the Loire,
               every white swan
               gliding hopes on Lake Geneva.
               Every brown-roofed chalet
               speckling the Alps became our nest.
               I groped for the intensity of your agate eyes
               in every mountain I encountered.
     
               I looked for you everywhere,
               but could only find you in me
               everywhere,
                    in every urban
                         and suburban cell
                                   of my existence.


                         
Interior Camera
     
               Is the touring as long for you as for me?
               Do you also meaningfully exist
               only by interior filming of me?
     
               Far from the sunrise
               of your eyes,
               there is no picture my  camera
               cares to take or see.
               This drifting among fragments
               of city exposures, only develops
               a thousand varieties of the source
               of your smile.
     
               Probing my skull's dark room,
               I try to determine our position
               in snaps black and white.
               We are in this fix:
               after this endless tour
               there will be another
               and another.
               You stare beyond me at a los
               accepting our present scanty shots,
               while I, wide-eyed seek
               further improved developments --
     
                    full length, real life,
                         panoramic
                              love films
     
               I tangle in stray film, forth and back,
               cannot shut the projector off,
               pieces stream and leak
                    all through my veins.

     
     
     
                          
Four Mad Dogs
     
               On our green path
               they send four brown and black
               mad dogs, frantically barking
               fury, leaping
               convulsions at us,
               their fangs frothing
               billows of demented saliva
               at our closeness.
     
               But though with bloodshot eyes
               they closely pursue,
               they do not get
               their prey.
               We drive smoothly
               through their clutches,
               shut our windows,
               enfold our arms tenderly
               and cuddle still closer.
     
               They always send
               four black and brown
               mad dogs with pointed teeth,
               when they smell what
                    they do not have.



                          
Your Real You
     
               No, I do not fill my pen
               with the moondust
               and green lawns of my own mind
               when I dwell upon you,
               but in the limpid spring
               of your real you
               deep buried in your skin
     
               And the kind of tune I play
               is not what I want to hear
               (as you maintain),
               but the quiet sounds you are.
               The shapes of light I draw
               are not from my own sun,
               but from their source in you.
     
               I look at you
               not only with the tips of my hands,
               but with wide-open eyes and ears;
               it is not the idea of your smile 
               I love,
               but your real smile
               lingering on honey lips and teeth
               I know cannot only kiss --
               but also bite.
     
               So, if my pages
               are wrapped with rainbows,
               it is the iridescent effect
               that you had on me, you see,
               when your barbed wires dropped,
               and you showed me the gentle spirit
                    in the tight-clasped fist.

     
                             
Seaweed
               
          "The bombs are not the cause of the problem, but only the symptoms of the
               deranged thought processes of man's mind..."



                                
Helen Caldicott                 
               
               I grapple with the edge
               of the taste
               of seaweed and bombs
               
               You have kept your 
               underground river away from me,
               preferred filling your pockets
               with pebble-bombs and seaweed silence.
               You knew of your thirst
               and my river longings - yet
               not enough empathy for surging waves
               not enough to break away
               from absurd deterrence reasoning
               and send it flying,
                    there's no cold war
               anymore.
               
               My fears
               refuse to stay in port,
               they fling pebble-bombs
               and brown seaweed
               like drowned hearts
                    full in my face.

     
     
                       
Silver Mosaic Stone
     
               I give you this small
               glowing stone with silver mosaic,
               chiseled from Lake Kinnereth's breast.
     
               When  you curl your finger
               around its permanence, remember --
               the woman who gave it to me
               was ready to give me her summer too.
               But then,
               lethargy's manacles cried:
     
               "We are not born free,
               I am a slave,
               young in years
               but yet so old,
               I feel eight hundred years old,
               my will is buried with my father
               in the grave."
     
               "Is there no hope for us?"
               "Only after the flood."
     
               I am left with strings of
               stone on my tongue,
               So I give you this stone
               full of me instead --
                    now lifeless in your hand.

     
             
Silver Wedding Rainbow in New York City
     
               You lifted me up high
               waltzed me past our friends' smiles
               seated at white tables
               around the rainbow room,
               round and round
               around the rainbow room,
               until I could almost touch
               New York's blazing
               messages all around.
     
               "Put me down!" I cried,
               laughing silvery wedding laugh,
               but you still whizzed me
               round and round
               higher than anybody
               higher than the light
     
               "Is this what a silver wedding
               is all about?" I laughed
               a further bell laugh,
               while some of our friends threw
               wistful glances
               at your silvery support of me
               higher than anybody
               higher than the light.
     
               I kissed you joyously
               my quarter of a century
               silver-wedding-husband,
               round and round
                    rainbow around.



                       
Common Bloodstream
     
               You have strolled in me all year
               all the length of my blue and red streams
               until your folded lips
               gently interlaced
               the seams of my eyelids
     
               I once tried to filter you out
               of my blood,
               but you bit firmly
               and wanted in
     
               Now you are so much me
               my love o--
               I do not know anymore
               what is me
               what is you.
     
                         In one kind of fish
                         the male attaches himself to the female
                         with his saber sharp teeth,
                         eventually they share a common bloodstream.
                                             Boston Aquarium



                             
Fragile
     
               Part of me has left
               to escape from you,
               to grow whole again
               like a smooth round melon,
               after you dug English holes
               in my pulp.
     
               All of me is back --
               I am whole again,
               but lonely and need you.
     
               This time my love,
               remember I'm fragile,
               please handle me 
               with care.
     
               The stems that connect
               my molecules
               are like those of thin
               wine glasses.
               Be careful how you sip,
                    they break so easily.



                            
Hard Nut
     
               There is no scar
               but only internal difference
               where words seem to be written
               with water ink
               of unconvincing meanings
     
               There is no scar
               but confusion of vision and blindness
               in my hard-nut mind,
               and yours --
               each wrapped in
               its own newspaper full of
               infinite limited notions.
     
               Yet, we still choose to drive on
               together in the wind,
               tumble in the same car,
               kiss the same ear,
               stroke same sand-dune back,
               enter each other's wooden curves,
               each other's vision
               each other's blindness,
               we still choose to drive on
               tenderly
                    in the wind



                           
Sunflowers
     
               We did not know
               We were two rooted
               Sunflowers
               With falling seeds --
               Until
                    We tried
                              To move


                             
The End
     
               I wonder 
               about the end of things,
               my finger curls
               around the root
               of an essence:
               when and where
               our love will ever
               cease to be
               the sap 
               I constantly breathe,
               like a one time
               glowing asphodel
               fossilized into stone.
     
               I dread whether a time
               will come when your being
               will cease to be
               a Sabbath part of me,
               when your hand
               will cease 
               dissolving
               into mine
               like a honey bee
               into a hyacinth,
               when you
               will just be you
               and I
               will just be me,
     
               like two lonely 
               rocks again
               at the bottom
                    of the sea.


                        
To Leave You Now
               
               To leave you now
               would be an 
               amputation,
               I would survive,
               but there would
               be 
               less
               of me.
               
          

Part Two
WOMEN POEMS
          
NOT IN YOUR MUSEUM               
             ANYMORE
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
                                   No joy-denier can deny me now.
                                   For what I have is undeniable
                                   I inhabit my own house,
                                   the house of my joy
     
                                                  Erica Jong
                                                       Loveroot


                Woman of No Time
     
               I am the woman
               Who has no time,
     
               I envy those who have
               They envy me for having none.
     
               My desire is to plant forests
               But I only manage shrubs,
     
               I want to run one million races
               When I barely manage one.
     
               Yet I know I'm not a fly born in the summer dawn
               And dead in the afternoon,
     
               My day is a pomegranate
               Full of ruby grains --
     
               Time must be my friend!  
               Stopping me from tasting them all at once
               So I can enjoy them one by one.
     
               As long as each grain is a lifetime
                    I do not care if I am the woman of no time.



                    
Assa and Farah of Isfahan
     
               "Werever I am,
               Farah likes it"
               Assa announced
               With bubbling male pride,
               His young beard and tongue husky,
               His eyes gleaming in the 'gaz'
               nougat-nut atmosphere
               of a Persian miniature.
               Farah nodded a violet nod,
               while her brown chestnut hair
               became a shade sadder
               against the giant copper kettles,
               and through the notes
               of 'Hey Hoda!' -- 'Oh my God!'
               she whispered in my ear:
               "You look happy,
               I do not know
               many happy women."
     
                                     Isfahan, February, 1972.   

                        
     
                     
Muffled in Your Halachic Caresses
     
               I was a bandaged Golem* in an ancient ark
               waiting centuries for you to open the door
               when you could spare the time.
     
               I remember Rabenu Gershom bravely
               killing the dragon of polygamy
               who was strangling me far back in the tenth century -
               giving me the right to say
               to my divorcing husband:  yea or nay.
     
               Where are the Rabbi Gershom of today?
                    Oh where are they?
               For ten centuries I have been waiting
               in this stifling museum
               for my equal right to be a witness, to testify
               in my own ark like Deborah to be Dayan.**
     
               But no more - I'm alive and awake
               not a bandaged Golem anymore
               not a slave, not a child -
               time to untie sterile bandages grown musty
     
               Time to open the ark wide
               and tread the earth again
               in search of the ripe pomegranates of today -
     
               I don't belong to your museum anymore.
______________________________     
               Notes:
                    *Golem: Dummy, robot, idiot.
                         **Dayan: A rabbinical judge

     
   
     
                          
A Ladino Song
               
               Again, and again I am there, though I am here.
               In that Aranjues wine-cellar in Toledo, leading to
               a gray corridor winding towards the river
               
               Since that mustached shop owner showed me,
               smiling beneath his quaint flower-print plates, the
               ancient eight-branched Menorah he found in his cave
               
               dropped by my Jewish ancestors, fleeing the wolves
               of the Inquisition - I cannot leave that Aranjues cellar.
               I am still there with the Menorah though I am here.
               
               I tried to fell to that caffe in front of the synagogue
               which has been turned into Maria Bianca's church, but I was still
               there.  Then a singer, named Ada, with a deep "fatho" soul
               
               sang a Ladino song, my grandmother sang to me:  El pasharo se
               vola "the bird has flown, the heart is crying, weep my soul weep
               deep, for there are bad people who will not let you life...."
               
               An Aranjues shiver ran down my spine, the floor
               opened its ancient arms and I sank into the cellar again,
               ran in the corridor again, now closer to the river
               
               flying with the bird, weeping with the fugitives
               but still holding the Menorah
               tightly in my hand
               
               I am still there
                    though I am here



                          
Real Abishag
     
          What Abishag really thought, blossoming fifteen-year old
          lying taut wide-eyed on kingly bed silent
          at the side of old King David, was--"What bad breath he has!"
     
          Father bade me hold my tongue and go to the King in Jerusalem.
          Mother wiped my tears with soft words
          said I should be proud to be the chosen one
          among all beauties of the land to warm royal bones
          but they didn't tell me what breath King David has!
     
          His handmaids taught me how to touch him
          how to caress and revive
          His courtiers showed me how to smile, how to give life --
          so that they could live, keep rivals at bay.
          They decorated me queen-bride fragrant like mint
          brought me trembling to the royal bed,
          but I can't touch, can't smile --
     
          The poor King smells like the carcass
          of the once noble beloved horse in our neighbor's field in Shunem.
          Before it died, the farmer covered his horse
          with a sack to warm his bones back to life -- 
          but the vultures came anyway.
     
          I am the courtiers' and handmaids' sack --
          Oh God!  What breath King David has!
          
          It smothers me, it chokes, his breath
          mother, it strangles me, I shall die, O God!
          Will it ever, ever stop?
     
          Stop.
          In the morning just after golden dawn --
               King David was no more.

     
     
                  
Lost Living Goddess of Nepal
     
               Pretty ten-year old
               little girl
               a full-fledged goddess
               at the foot of the Himalaya
     
               Wooden palace
               and crowned head
               earrings and make-up
               cannot hide your sad smile
               at the foot of the Himalaya
     
               For you know
               the day would soon come
               when blood
               will flow
               and chase you
               from your palace at the foot of the Himalaya
     
               A goddess no more
               you will descend among humans
               once more
               who will want you no more
               a frightened little girl
               has lost her childhood
               at the foot of the Himalaya.
     
                                   Katmandu, Nepal


                      
Loss of the Milky Way
     
               In the land of milk and honey,
               milk shut me out forever.
               My doctor calls it allergy
               and I call it tragedy.
               Your enzyme for that one
               is dead, he kindly explains
     
               But how did he die?  I protest in dismay,
               I still love him so with his mounts of choco
               ice-cream and cake, cheeses and butter,
               I desperately mutter.
               You may still love him, the doctor nods,
               but he surely does not love you.
     
               I mourn goodbye to the Milky-Way
               and staunchly climb my winding path
               vowing solemnly:
               
               Though all my land has emptied of milk -
               I will fill it with honey.
          

     
                        
Mexican Amanecio
     
               Mexico has "Amanecio" -
               has brought me the true story of the rising sun
               filled with sunlight night memories
               of her tragic, conquered Indian past
               which has filled my inner world
               with powerful Aztec sun Gods and Mayan Pyramids
     
               And in the present, her life-force
               in the shaded eyes
               of poor, barefoot children
               kissed tenderly by warm mothers -
               before they are sent to sell illuminated paintings
               of rich Mexican landscapes
               in flashing orange and golden colors -
               still bears the scars of her conquered past
     
               I now wear Mexico's dainty pearl necklace
               Around my tourist throat
               Woven by a little Mananita with pearly eyes -
               "Mire que ya amanecio!" flashed her smile,
               The sun is at last rising again ...
     
               Mexico, your hacienda kindness,
               Your warm vivacity, your awakening energy -
               Has filled me with hope
               That our world at the end of this mushroom
               Century will at last fully "Amanecio"
               Lavishing food and education - not arms -
                    On all the hungry, smiling children of our world.

     
In memory of the XIV World Congress of Poets
     Monterrey and Mexico City, August 1993


     
                          
Las Mananitas
     
               You are yourself dear Elia
               One of those flashing black-eyes mananitas
               Sung by King David, in your moving birthday song
     
               What a surprise to hear my grandmother
               Regina's Ladino cradle song
               Crowned national Mexican Birthday Anthem,
               Sung by cheerful Maryachi in quaint artist cafe
               And in colorful, melodious Garibaldi Square -
     
               Did the Marranos bring the song over
               The scarlet oceanic waves
               When they were banished from Spain
               To the redeeming, blazing sun of Monterrey
               That dogged them and us
               Closely night and day?
     
               Despertia!  You taught us, "Me bien despierta ..."
               And we woke up wide-eyed
               To the rich beauty and tragedy of historic
               and present-day Mexico, flashing through
               Your blazing eyes and palpitating red lips -
               Frida Kahlo's dramatic paintings
               now flow in my own veins
               Whispering urgently "Despertia..."
     
               Fine Mananita friend, you poignant love of humanity
               Perfumed with Aztec flowers and incense poems
                    Has perfumed my life ...

     
                        
Daughter of Sinai
     
               They have come again with their washed faces
               And their green and yellow bags full of goodies,
               But not for me little Sulha of the desert
               Nor for my three greedy brothers.
     
               "Toda raba"1 is a magic word
               For opening those bright treasure bags
               From which we get "khobs"2 and biscuits and sweets,
               Meat and cigarettes, coins, smiles and frowns.
     
               This one looks at me demandingly,
               I shall not let her take my picture
               Unless she pays me the required snap-money,
               I cannot squander my image so.
     
               My black eyes dart looks of "Khutspe"3
               My tiny mouth curls in defiance.
               I hide behind my brothers
               And shout the noise of the desert.
     
               They are all gone, swallowed by their big blue giant camel,
               Those strange creatures from beyond the desert.
               Could I just once venture to their nylon bags' spring
               I would bring back piles and piles, numberless as the 
                    sands of the desert.
     
          __________
     
          1.   Toda raba:  many thanks (in Hebrew).
          2.   khobs:  bread (in Arabic).
               3.   Khutspe:  defiance, cheek (in Yiddish).

     
                             
Massada
     
               I was at Segera, she said,
               With a historic look
               Two thousand years old,
               Flickering from her wan, freckled face,
               Each freckle a wrinkle of wisdom --
               I was at Ein Gedi too,
               and I had to come back home to
               Massada.
     
               I looked at her aged booted figure,
               A disquieting feeling nibbling.
               Could she make it?
               She was so much part of it --
               Yet so out of place,
               With her burden of four score
               and her frail, frail Itsik
               Wobbling stoically behind her, to Massada.
     
               "I was often here before."
               Her voice had the sound of the mountain.
               "You young people do not understand.
               You cannot understand the meaning of coming back.
               I had to come back as before... before I go."
               And she embraced the tortuous snake climb
               Each heavy tread bringing her closer up
               To Massada.
     
               I felt guilty for letting them continue
               That which might shorten their days.
               She was nothing to me -- I was nothing to her.
               Why this gnawing feeling for this mounting rock
               That would not abide?
     
               I argued, and offered my hand, but to no avail.
               The winds flapped the gates of her ancient memory,
               And she generously offered me the inside of her eighties.
               At the center I read -- Massada.
     
               I turned my back on the aged couple, in despair,
               My feet doubly aching, for me and for them.
               At the top of Massada, I had no more wish
               To inhale the mystery of ruins, than to find out
               What had become of them, the human ruins.
               Had physical weakness overcome will-power, this time?
               Had they collapsed on the way like desert rocks,
               Joining Massada?
     
               Then suddenly she surged from the brown cliffs,
               A triumphant white apparition.
               An exuberant look of sublime joy
               Illuminated her old, old face
               In a radiant way I shall never forget.
               Then, I knew it was wrong of me to have tried to stop them;
               Ancient mute cries sprang from the mute ruins:
               "We have come back home!  Massada has fallen,
                    Massada will never fall again..." she looked.

     
     
                       
Arturo's Rubenstein
     
          "The power of Creation seems to favour human beings who love life
               unconditionally, And I am certainly one who does..."
                                   Arturo Rubenstein
     
               Today you are ninety Arturo,
               and you play us your Rubenstein
               fingers lovingly enlacing
               life's hidden allegro
               "Everyday is the happiest
               one for me,
               living an intensive life
               is my secret --
               I've never met a person
               as joyful as me."
     
               My friends wink and say,
               "Perhaps that's because
               he's never met you --"
               I'm not sure they're right'
               then I think of  your dazzling smile
               my love, suffusing my sky with symphonies
               like fresh rain on scorched earth,
               and am filled with --
               Glad to meet you,
                    dear Mr. Rubenstein.

     
                 
If a White Horse From Jerusalem
     
               If a white horse from Jerusalem
               Straight from Jerusalem
               Strides so valiantly, gracefully,
               Like yearning,
               The early dawn hours 
               Of my Haifa street,
               As if it were the ocean
               As if it were the sky --
               Then all is possible
     
               Perhaps it has come to take us away,
               He will wink a golden wink
               And you will lose your glue
               For chains of sand and fly with me
               Perhaps before my hair falls
               Before my teeth fall,
               and I stop wanting to fly with you,
               Before my breath whistles
               Before I die
     
               Perhaps it will take us
               On his white wings
               My smile in your palm
               Mine in yours --
               To Mexico, Majorca,
               Or even Eylat or Ophira,
               Then back to Jerusalem.
     
               For if a white horse strides so valiantly
               in my Haifa street --
                    Then all is possible...

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
Part Three:
A GARLAND OF GRAIN                                                
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
          

                             
Mamica
     
               You never read Rousseau's "Emile",
               yet knew it instinctively
               by heart.
               Let us roam barefoot
               in golden fields of home,
               sleep with open windows wide
     
               Gave us all you had
               with two full hands
               of bedstead copper angels.
               Sometimes you forgot to eat,
               but never to feed us.
               Whatever we did or said
               was a diamond mine --
               you children were your little gods.
     
               Even when I left you and France
               for a country I loved,
               you were not hurt or angry,
               gave your daughter to the kibbutz
               with a smile followed by a tear.
     
               Today we worship you in return,
               like a queen emerging
               from Paris metro's belly,
               to Bat-Galim, daughter of the waves,
               queen of the waves again
               as in Alexandria --
               mothr, mamica, standing on a shell
               crowned by love.
     
                    'Mamica' is an endearment for 'mother' in Ladino.

     
                    
Graffiti Under the Table
     
               I turned our kitchen table
               upside down
               to paint its legs white,
               on its belly
               scribbled in red oil crayon,
               babyish letters glared
               "Ariel is a good boy."
     
               His quaint graffiti
               tear-blurted
               on the inner screen
               wistfully protested
               self-preservation,
               probably against me --
               for having scolded him
               for not washing 
               his chubby fingers,
               or not eating fish
               or spinach.
     
               The plump red words
               staunchly stood
               beneath the table
               on the hidden screen
               braving the years,
               as love stands
               on a slapped face ---
     
               slapping mine
                    across the years.
                         Son On His Own
     
               Twenty
                    years ago
                         as if yesterday,
                              your baby forehead --
     
               Puck!
               bumped into mine
               seriously in play.
     
               Today, 
               in your honey beard son,
               you have gone to a home of your
               own
               a mate of your own,
               you stand beyond me
                 straight,
                    and beautiful,
                         and distant,
     
               as if I had given birth
               to a smiling traveling butterfly
                 intent on his way
              Smile on Mount Carmel on Rosh Hashana
     
               Redhead Shani,
               Like a russet sunrising
               Under cloudy pines
               Under needles
               Among cones --
               Smiled to me today
               A honey and milk smile
               Sculpting my flesh
               With dewy eyes.
               Little red-white flower toes
               Skip the air
               Hand praising, staccato,
               Like a fairy baby
               Waving invisible wands
               Feasting my look.
               Tiny Shani smiled --
               And all the world opened,
               All the trees, all the cones, all the needles,
               All the world smiled back
               From the pine clouds in me,
               Nodding with wondering dewy eyes:
               Yes, yes, all is yes.
     
                                                  15 Sept. 1977

             
From Grandfather Papou to Grandson Idan
     
               Papou,
               Good news on the tail of the wind,
               Your granddaughter's grandson
               With cute Beatle hairstyle --
               Like you, is born in Israel too.
               A mount of Mazel Tov papou, wherever you are.
     
               You, born in nineteenth century Yaffo,
               Jew -- wandering among the nations
               On the Medusa raft:
               Three generations on the Nile,
               then the flowing Seine
     
               And domed Milan
               Your idealistic granddaughter
               Back to Israel --
               And now Idan, papou,
               Idan is here
               Closing the five generations
               Cycle roots
               From Yaffo to Haifa.
     
               This time papou,
               Not with a ribboned box
               Of Cairo's Groppi
               Melting fondant sweets
               With walnuts tasting of evanescence,
               But with almond kernels
               In strong shells.
               Roots planted here --
               this time for good,
                    For good, papou.

     
                           Time in Abadan:
                     Homage to Omar Khayyam
     
          Life is but a checkerboard of nights and days / With Destiny for pieces plays/
          He moves, he mates, he slays / And one by one / Back in the box he lays
                                   Omar Khayyam, Rubayat
     
               In green, peaceful Abadan,
               the long longed-for treasure
               flowed profusely into my lap,
               fluid more precious 
               than its black gold --
               the pure transparent gold
               of Time.
     
               Time to think what Omar
               really meant when he wrote:
               "While you live
               Drink!
               for once dead
               you never shall return."
               Time, like him,
               to adjourn to this "earthen bowl"
               under two shady palm trees,
               "My lip the secret well of life to learn."
               Time to mark the remarkable lines
               with a jasmine exclamation,
               and slip a Persian miniature
               on their depth.
               Time to open one's long arms wide,
               and perform the unique feat
               of listening closely to one's pulse --
               and wonder
                    at its pace!


                   
Dear Descartes:  Creativity
     
               Dear Descartes,
               Not only "I think, therefore I am,"
               but mostly:
               I create, therefore I am.
     
               I am me for having given birth
               to them, this, and you.
     
               I gaze intently at my offspring,
               my oeuvre,
               launched for life, for death?
               Vibrating sharp soft sparks
               of magnetic birth,
               marvellously quenching my desire
               and thirst --
               pure essence
                    of fresh vitality.

     
                   
Saul Bellow:  Get Out From
                         Under My Pillow
     
               Dear Saul Bellow,
               please get out from under
               the existentialist creases of my pillow,
               where you have been lurking
               these past five years.
     
               Praise you,
               for having strengthened me
               in brushing aside the doom sayers
               with their pipsqueak religions
               of void and gloom --
               for your wise words
          clinging like ripe peaches to my cells
     
               But now,
               please move from under my pillow,
               for I'm a freed prisoner
               of my Ph.D.
               The time has at last come
               for me to pass my own words along,
               to try myself to
               "Seize the Day,"
               instead of merely dissecting it.
     
               At my cross road, I send you
               A library of thanks
               Nobel Saul Bellow
               for having been my close
               and staunch, learned companion
               these five full
                    Rain King years.


                
Not Old:  Saul Bellow Indeed Knew
     
               Even Mr. Sammler
               that one-eyed septuagenarian
               was not too old to be involved in his planet
     
               "But I feel a hundred years old"
     
               You young mensch who have saved
               your eye from oven 
               have a full store of ripe pomegranates
               if you only care to pick them
     
               "But I feel a hundred years..."
     
               Why can you only carry
               the heavy public banner
               and not your precious
               private loved one?
     
               "But I feel a hundred..."
     
               Remember what Ramona said to Herzog?
               "An old man smells old, your smell is young"
     
               "But I feel..."
     
               A woman can also tell
               from the spring of a sunrise smile
               in deep blue eyes
               like violets on Mount Carmel,
               and the breath of a caress
               like a flaming russet bush.
     
                    Saul Bellow indeed knew.



                       
Spineless Academic
     
               The sleek academic,
               what a jelly-fish mess!
               His small, round, shallow eyes
               blurring out an avalanche
               of water-words
               over his decaying
               piscivorous teeth.
     
               He is incontestably,
               a perfect specimen
               of the refined image
               of carp
               piscatology is trying to rear
               in the civilized, artificial ponds --
               sleek, smooth, and almost
                    spineless.

     
                        
Take Us To Soweto
     
          Dedicated to the African Black Poets I met in Johannesburg, at the American
               Embassy.
     
          "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies,
               in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
               cold and are not clothed."                   Dwight D. Eisenhower
     
               Lady from Tel-Aviv, lady from Tel-Aviv, 
               now that we've read together,
               now that we've cried together,
               please take us back to Soweto,
               with our poems "abalonga goddam"
               full of cried of crippled children
               full of anger
               wrapped in pain --
               please take us back
               to Soweto
     
               If I only could, would have taken you
               not only to Soweto --
               but to where the leaves'
               free rustle roams,
               where poems grow ripe
               before they grow hoarse.
     
               But then, I'm not even
               from Tel-Aviv,
               I'm only from Haifa --
               and have no car
               to take you to
               the leaves' free rustle,
               or to Soweto
                                        Johannesburg, May, 1977



                         
In Your Museum
     
               Embalmed in your 
               Mummifying caresses
               I was a zombie
               A bandaged mummy
               In an ancient sarcophagus
               Patiently waiting centuries
               For you to open tthe lid
               When you could spare the time.
     
               But no more,
               I am alive --
               Not a zombie
               Not a mummy anymore,
               Time to untie sterile bandages
               Grown musty,
               Time to open the lid wide
               And tread the earth again
               In search of rolling
               Pomegranates.
     
               I don't belong
               To your museum
                    Anymore.



                           
Papyrus Fan
     
               I decline the honor of being
               Your impeccable sabi anymore,
               To wobble gently, obediently,
               In your footsteps,
               With painted face
               And high-heeled shoes,
               Holding the luscious papyrus fan
               High up to your ego.
     
               The heat is as stifling
               For me, as for you,
               And the fan whispers
               The same promises to me.
               So what about holding it
               Up to me
               For a change?
     
               Or still preferable --
               It is so heavy anyway,
               What about holding it 
                    Together?



                         
Mimosa Equality
     
               I wait for the day
               blossoming as a mimosa,
               when half the world's presidents
               will be women
               with hair flowing cosily
               around every cry
     
               And the sun will shine
               on all mortals
               with equal golden rays
               in every green field,
               every printed book
               every human look

          
                     
A Jewish Woman's Prayer
     
               Bless you Oh Lord
               for having made me a woman,
               for if you had made me a man
               I would have had to pray:
               "Bless you Oh Lord for not having
                    made me a woman."



                             
Daphne
     
               I did not know
               Bernini's Daphne
               was in my own woods,
               my Mount Carmel,
               one moist afternoon
               poised on legend green
               stillness
     
               Her face
               a flower in curved sorrow
               tilts backwards,
               flowing shoots
               fan the earth,
               while leafy arm-branches
               raise twig-tips
               in veined supplication
               towards the sky
               blowing
               anguished seeds
               of yearning germinating
               in my own soul.
     
               I grow roots in
                    Daphne's static soil.

     
     
     
                           
Love Games
     
               Sorry.  I took it seriously.
               I put you at the very top
               of the ladder, up there with my breath
               and the sun --
               but did not get warm.
     
               For you, I way lying somewhere
               in the middle rung
               with movies and games
               you play once a wweek
               then brush aside
               when something more important sprouts.
               No need to worry about games,
               They're always there in the cupboard
               waiting breathlessly
               for the playboy to open the door.
     
               But no more --
               I have adjusted my scales
               to fit yours,
               and am ready for the game.
               And anyway, games are so much more fun...
     
               Be careful,
                    I've started to play.



                        
Crumpled Curtain
     
               It is all sadly crumpled again,
               its beige folds painfully
               jerking one another
               in silent protest,
               sticking its frayed angles
               like protruding nerves in a heap.
     
               You have again pushed it
               back callously,
               with stout unfeeling fingers
               disturbed its smooth flowing harmony,
               one fold after another
               painfully crying out its
               testimony --
     
               This is what
               you often do
                    to my feelings.

     
                          
Mother, Kikuji Is Again
                      With the Geisha Girls
     
               Hai, squid and seaweed in bamboo boat.
               Mother, what is she doing to my husband,
               rubbing his chest and leg and ego?
     
               Hai, jelly fish and seaweed in roasted eye.
     
               Mother, why did you tell me
               they are just psychological hostesses
               sometimes singers and dancers, but nothing more --
               If a psychologist caressed my breast and leg
               wouldn't Kikuji be annoyed too?
               And when I need a psychologist, mother,
               whom do I go to?
     
               Hai, crab and seaweed in parching mouth,
               which unlike yours and granny's
               refuses to be custom-choked.
     
               Mother, oh mother, I'm so lonely when he goes
               to the geisha girls.
     
               I dangle a thousand million cranes for the day
               when the geishas will rise from the tatami
               in their rose-winged kimonos,
                    mount the bamboo boat
                         and float
                              straight out
                                   of our lives.
     
                                             Hokkaido, Japan, July, 1976

     
     
                            
Chameleon
     
               You raise your voice:
               till when will you agree
               till tomorrow morning?
               You see me
               as a chameleon with rolling eyes
               who changes color skin
               at the touch of your voice,
               then goes back to
               ignorant insipid colors
               on other lethargic
               backgrounds.
               You want to reveal
               your world of ideas
               before my fractured chameleon eyes,
               to cut through my wrapped vision
               with translucent truth like
               crystal balls,
               rage
               when I do not
               pick them up.
     
               But I'm not a chameleon,
               I'm me.
               And when I agree,
               it is only to the nuances
               of some of the angles
               of your words.
     
               not all their colors
               not all their reflections.
               I have my own colors
               my own reflections
               rooted in me
               as deeply
               as yours.
     
               When I try
               to disturb a new perception
               in your clouded eyes,
               I don't consider them
               blind.
               You have a right to your bushes
               as I to mine.
     
               My darling, 
               they have cut down
               our Daphne tree,
               don't let us
               continue their cutting job.
               Help each other
               despite our different colors,
               not cut each other.
     
               I'm not a chameleon chameleon,
                    you're not a chameleon chameleon.

     
                    
Not Even On Her Birthday
     
               One buzz on.
               They said they would take her out
               to birthday-dance.
               this time they sounded they really meant it,
               could not possibly void-postpone.
     
               Two buzzes, off.
               They jammed her birthday tears deep in throat,
               throttled her slotted expectancy,
               callously tore up her sleep's road
               with Turkish coffee.
     
               Three buzzes on off.
               Did she imagine for one
               smiling-moon moment
               she could keep her hours' bliss intact?
               Forty four years
               forty four buzzes off, off, off.
     
               She lay livid in white sheets
               her liver swollen
               to once and a half its normal size,
               while future years
               waltzed away like flowing sand
               through her numb groping fingers,
               buzz after buzz, after buzz,
               all merely buzzes.
     
               She did not believe them anymore.
               Would never be caught
               in their buzz-traps again.
                    Last buzz off.

     
     
                          
Free Lioness
     
               Recoiling
               Gauze over wound,
               From biting teeth of later
               Choking of pushed, aside,
               As if she had gobbled smoldering coal --
               The lioness paces, plots,
               Thunders --
               Then erupts in full glory
               Smashing gilded filaments,
               Air-poised paw
               Mane aglow,
               Full queen of her dazzling
               World again.
               Climbing majestically
               To the height of her green splendour,
               She gazes around superb
               At her numerous forsaken subjects.
     
               Shaggy head raised
               Amber eyes shooting,
               She roars her mighty royal paean
               High up into the deafness of mute sky,
               Pulls it like a carpet,
               And shakes its stars
                    All over our crazy world.



                             
Upright
     
               I gazed entraptured
               At the tide of children
               circling gaily and waving limbs
               To the beat of a tambourine.
     
               "Choose your gestures,"
               The teacher's voice
               Floated loud and clear
               Above the barefoot din.
     
               As by magic,
               The children divided
               Into those with bent backs
               And those who crawled on fours.
     
               Except for the odd one
               Who stood his ground,
               Looked to the left, looked to the right,
                    And preferred to remain upright.

     
                              
Shani
     
               Golden-ginger curls,
               peach fists in incubator
               holding year two thousand in one,
               and us in the other.
               Shani
               promising as the bright scarlet light
               in the horizon over the sea,
               you will be twenty three springs
               in the twenty first century.
     
               How will our world then be?
               United, warless?
               every tear wiped
               in every hungry eye?
               Equal opportunities for you
               as for him?
               You calmly lie in your
               jeans-colored uni-sex perambulator
               smiling your mother's smile
               enveloped in your father's glee,
               and wave a tiny arm
               reassuringly.
               How come I already
               love you
               Shani?
     
                                            21 February, 1977         


                         
The Roger Dance
     
               The Roger dance is not over,
               when you dance this way - it's forever
     
               Graceful, elegant steps,
               charm and majestic poise
               legs nimble, stretched
               arms curved, yearning to grasp
               the bizarre whims of strange humanity
     
               With a knowing, tender, witty, wistful smile
               you lead your dancing partners
               into your enchanted world
               where cardboard becomes gold
               where hatred becomes harmony.
     
               They told me Roger, Heraclitus,
               "they told me you were dead
               they brought me bitter news to hear
               and bitter tears to shed,
               I wept as I remembered
               how often you and I had tired the sun..." (1)
               with dancing and sent him down the sky
     
               For when you dance this way
               through life, through words, dear Roger -
               your unique performance
               is with me, with us, forever
--------------------------------------------------------------------     
          (1) The lines in quotation marks are from Tennyson's poem on the death of Heraclitus. 
               In addition to his being a great poet, Roger, who was a peace-loving Bahai, was a
               member of a ballet company and appeared on Canadian Television.  He died from
                              cancer, in 1994.



                          
Triple Thread
     
               To believe in what?
               In the seed.
     
               To do what?
               To be.
     
               Why do I live?
               To give.
     
                                        Shin Shalom
                                             Translated by Ada Aharoni

     
                       
Idan and the Waves
     
               The three year-old big blue eyes
               the color of the sea
               gazed with wonder at the waves
               and then at me,
               sitting on a rock in Bat-Galim
               the Daughter of the Sea -
               "Why do the waves run away,
               run away, every time,
               away, away from me?
               And where do they go
               when they run faraway,
               faraway, all the time
               away from me?"
     
               Dear Idan,
               even then, like now, your curious brain
               already thirstily
               asked and asked, trying
               to seize the flitting essence
               of waves, of peace, of wars,
               even then like now,
               your big blue eyes
               the color of the sea,
               tried to grasp the ungraspable
               meaning of each retreating and advancing
               frothy bubble
                    in our turbulent sea.

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