That time I wanted so badly to feel
A different kind
Of dust on my boots
Red, so fine and dry‐
Do you remember how I
Begged you to come to the desert with me?
To sleep again
Underneath black skies
To feel the chill of earth, so dry
That even in summer, at night, we'd freeze
To wake at first light
To the longing, red hills
To the world: a fresh wound
Yawning, open before us.
The tissue-thin, dried-out, brown, crumpled leaves, still sit–undisturbed, in the grey, stone pot that you left behind, when you moved out.
It's the only thing that, when I moved in, I left in its place, on the floor, by the window.
Unlike the box of your old cookware, that I had to haul to the orange street bin, or the long, folding, banquet table, I carried under my arm, all the way to the Wizo thrift shop.
These things all had stories that took up too much space, and you left them behind, for me to deal with.
But the heavy, grey, volcanic stone pot, was already a ghost; I just think you forgot.
Trust me when I say this: in my fifty-six years, I've moved more times than I can count, and as unromantic as it may sound, we're always leaving our ghosts behind:
An old plant in a corner
we'd forgotten to water
A snow globe given by an
office friend
A shoebox of some
deceased relative's
clippings
All just ghosts from a life,
Ephemeral things.
In this driving, blinding, crushing rain,
There's little to nothing that can be seen,
Beyond the house across the street;
Even the bright, port crane lights are gone.
I dreamt, last year, of a massive flood,
That swallowed the jettys that lie in the Bay
And went on to eat the docks,
The port, Bat Galim, and the Lower City
And as the waves white caps lashed hard
The houses, and cracked their graffiti'd facades,
The concrete block, brick and rock
Walls b'neath gave way, and fell
The kiosks, cafés, Tambours, makolets,
All seemed to sigh, surrender, and sink.
The old Russian men who ran shops in Hadar,
Soviet, and stoic, shrugged and drank tea
The Christian Arabs all fervently prayed,
Masjid minarets played Al Adhan
And as the waters continued to rise
Threatening us, atop Har HaCarmel
News 12 said that "..well, of course,
the new Ark has long already been built,"
Then went on to say, "...but there's only room,
for Bibi, Sarah, and the Haredim".
And while I stood at my kitchen window,
Looking out as my city drowned,
'Twas the raven I envied, who'd refused to return
And not at all, the supplicant dove.
Although the sky is falling, nothing ever seems to stop:
Police sirens wail, the traffic hums, and ships (imperceptibly) "race"
To unload goods at port for us and our impatience
The neighbours across the way
Are fighting yet again;
He'd promised to fix the roof last year and now the floor is wet.
So much commerce, all the time; so much to get done
I try to lose myself, instead in watching my pigeons;
Some huddle 'neath dudei shemesh,
Others bravely stood atop: defy the downpour, and
Autumn chill, to gaze upon their world;
They seem to say, "why miss a moment, of this hungry life? It eats us whole, no matter what, so live! Don't just survive."
The obstreperous white of
Cranes' wings in flight
Strike the battleship-steel-grey sky, and
Slash the seamless, fog-drawn dawn;
A brilliance, bright as
Summer's Sun
All calls to mind, how even now,
In dark'st November,
When torpor pulls
Me back to slumber—
The refuge of dreams,
(When all of mine have
Come undone,)
It's neither time to
Give in, nor give up,
With promises waiting, like
Bulbs 'neath the frost
If only I can just hold on
Through interminable Winter's stark,
As day succeeds night, the Spring will dawn
Only new light can vanquish old dark.
I've kept your mug.
The one with the alligators,
Where each one's different,
But every one,
Has the tail of another one
Clamped in its teeth.
You'd told me once, how
The only time, you'd
Use it, was when,
To you, it felt like
The entire world
Was "nipping at your tail"
And I understood instantly,
How it was a part of you
From outside of mom, and me.
I've often wondered
Where did you get it?
Did you buy it for yourself
Some evening, waiting,
Between trains?
Back in the early Seventies
When you worked for
Barton-Aschman
When we lived in Chicago,
And we only had one car,
So, at night, after work
You'd take the train,
Into Evanston,
Where mom and me
Would come pick you up
Me, in footsie pajamas
Red boots and winter coat
While the impotent wipers
Swept the snow off of the windscreen
Of mom's burgundy Renault?
Or, did you find it one morning,
Left, wrapped, on your desk,
A gift from a co-worker,
Or maybe the whole team
Because they'd actually seen
The monsters that you fought
(Both from without, and from within?)
Did it make you feel seen?
Did you feel understood? God,
I hope that you did.
I hope that at least once,
The world had been more kind to you,
Than it later, had become,
When you lay dying in a bed
That wasn't even yours,
Alone and scared, while
The insurance company threatened.
I've kept your mug.
Once, when I was visiting you
And mom, from New York, you'd
Walked into the kitchen,
Just as I was about to pour my coffee into it
And you told me not to use it,
That it was personal, something special
And you told me why, so that
Maybe I wouldn't feel offended
And I'd understand, how for you
It was sacrosanct; an amulet
For the worst of times.
I kept your mug
Out of all of the objects that
Populated our home with their stories
This is the part of you
I chose to bring with me.
I've used it only once
When I felt trapped by my shortcomings
That was back in New York, just after you'd died.
I kept your mug.
I keep it safely tucked
Towards the back of the cabinet,
Behind all my others,
Deeply loved, even if rarely seen
And I hope that maybe
That's the way, you'd
Told yourself
I felt about you.
My ancient home is
High above the bay
In Fall, I open up
All the windows
Air out the rooms from the
Stale heat of Summer
But none of the doors in my
Apartment latch
And with the windows open
It becomes a wind tunnel
And the wind plays percussion,
And the neighbours complain
But who am I?
And who are they,
To try to dictate when the
Bay wind, can play?
It starts as soft panic, that
Sends me back
To the sweetness of sleep.
When finally, I wake
It's at the insistence
Of my twitching nerves.
The toilet calls
Then coffee, and I'll stand,
Once again at my
Kitchen window, as the
Electric kettle, lit blue,
Bubbles
I'll assess the world,
Note the state of the bay,
And whether the pigeons are around today
Then, coffee made,
I'll adjourn to my chair; maybe
Flip through my phone
Or write a small poem
Anything to ignore the
Insurmountable mess that's
Taken over every
Inch of my home–—
"Just, don't look up- keep
your
Eyes on your phone, or
Something else,
Something
manageable, maybe
Sew another hat
Or write another poem"
While meanwhile, the piles of
Detritus grow
And so does the mould that's destroying my home
And wreaking this hell on my body.
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