06.03.2024

Behind me, it stretches 

Sometimes frayed, but never detached,

This root

Five thousand years long

There are knots here and there of varying size and complexity, and

Sometimes parts, worn so thin as to be imperceptible to the naked eye

The colours change

From greyed browns to the

Vividest orange

––

Today 

There is a new orange sundress– bought on a 

Cold, rainy March day in New York for 

Slow April coffees in Tel Aviv

And hot, humid, impatient waiting at bus stops 

And (Hopefully) 

Slow evening walks along the tayelet

––

It's true, I have lost so much

What I'd thought were my actual roots

My parents

My love

Artifacts of lives lived 

My sense of safety, and

I will lose yet more

This is only inevitable

Yet the root will remain

Anchored deep in five thousand years of soil 

And when finally, I too 

Am soil

This is my prayer:

That fresh shoots should spring up from what was me

And the young eat the fruit I'll have left behind.