Poems

I originally wrote these poems in Hebrew, so if they sound a bit contrived in English that's why. I'll try to upload the pdf's of the Hebrew for those of you who can read them that way

Shai (which means gift in Hebrew)

You were three when you returned to the States from Israel
I was so happy
And then it became clear to me that some things had changed between us
You weren’t “my baby” anymore
You didn’t want me to feed you a bottle and fall asleep in my arms
You had learned to speak, but in a language that I didn’t understand

So I too learned Hebrew
And you didn’t know it then, but it was a huge gift to me, Shai

You loved “boy things”
Trucks
Batman
And whenever we were driving in the car with your mom and we saw a tractor
She would say, “Shai, look what it is! A tractor!”
And you would be so happy, even if you had been crying the minute before

Now you are big, with a low voice, and if you wanted to, you could grow a beard on your face
And you’re starting university soon
And I am in disbelief

And now you are in the States
And I am in Israel
When I see a tractor, I am not happy, but scared
Because now “they are trying to push the Jews into the sea” with tractors
But after I pass it safely, I am happy, because I’m here, in Israel
And I wonder to myself: Would you be able to read this poem today?
Would you understand it?


Holy Place

They built the Tel Aviv Hilton on top of an old Arab cemetery
At least that is what our Jaffa tour guide told us
Now the tourists sleep on broken bones
But they can’t really feel them underneath the mattresses that were brought in from the U.S.

I see them, the tourists, off in the distance
But my eyes keep returning, returning
To the minaret that is in front of me
And the Arab houses that they have turned into galleries for jewelry and art

Across from the kindergarten that we destroyed there is another mosque
It’s not clear to me if people still pray there
But there is a sign next to the gate that says: “holy place.”
And if you look closely
You can see that they white-washed over the words “please don’t piss.”

I once wrote about the stones of Jerusalem--
How they are so slick from years of hands and feet on them--
Our Holy Place
And I wrote that if the tourists walk in just the right way
They will wind up with pieces of thousand-year-old souls stuck in their shoes

Today I am thinking about the souls of those whose graves lie under the Tel Aviv Hilton
I hear them screaming from inside the sewers
Mixed in with all of the piss and shit
Raging
Because someone decided that it is allowed to piss on a holy place