for Joseph Druch (1921-90)
“Israel is a period in Jewish history.” A.B.Yehoshoua, LATE DIVORCE
I. CAESAREA: ARCHEOLOGY
Where water was not to be had
naturally Herod had aqueducts built
as stones exposed to rain erode
*
was thought to date back to
but in fact dates back to
the history book says
*
dusk collects the changing hours
in this tourist art gallery café
ruins raised for new use
*
where one builds another suffers
the owner says
as stones exposed to wind give in
*
David’s Star flies
high lit above the amphitheater
as war jets tear at air.
II. MENASCHE HILLS: ISRAELI PERIOD
The cut is in
and all that glitters after is glean for storks
en route from Asia to Africa
*
they say
3,000 years ago
through Wadis Arah and Meleeq
Egyptian and Assyrian troops worked their way
to and from the sea
that hungry men without provisions ate here
collecting carob hyssop berries fennel even capers
brewed and cooked with wild meat
*
at the margin of the field bougainvillea bursts magenta
and oleander snakes along the ditch
where sunlight blasts eucalypts to shrapnel and shade
*
atop fence posts
the song of meadowlarks gets torn off
by sirens from the factory town
and war jets from the base.
III. SOURCES OF THE JORDAN
Fenced in by Lebanon
petal fall of almonds
encircle the trunks
*
sheltered from Syria
flocks of white cattle egrets
jazz the herd
*
figs trees green out
among roots and rocks
of the Banyas the Hatsbani and the Dan
*
where rivers meet
what makes all else possible
flows blood in water.
IV. TIMEPIECE: TEL-AVIV
Where dust paths cross
with blood red hands a coral tree
offers flowers to the world at large
*
people passing through the plaza don’t seem to notice
the lunch hour newsprint litter impaled on the palm
or the sundial shaped by those fronds
*
in groups & pairs of solitude
they step across the clock’s spokes
its shadows already fading as noon goes down.
V. YOM ZICHRON: REMEMBRANCE DAY
Sirens slash
the names are named
the songs are sung
the stones set down
with weeping and flowers in a broken vase
sirens slash
and troops load
back onto transports
taking them away.
VI. TZEFAT: SHABBATH
After sundown
over Mounts Meron and Canaan
a full moon floats
high above the blue graves of all the holy
*
I can see them from afar
but not go down
*
under the palms
dwarf blue doorways lead me
through courtyards
to the synagogues
*
their humming I can hear
but not go in
*
beneath balconies
behind wooden doors
beside veiled windows
evening escorts me past the centers of their singing
*
I listen
outside the very center of their prayer.
VII. HAR MAGGEDON: EXCAVATIONS
Blades clash
until grips slip
if and when whatever war is about to be
is about to undo all.
*
First one man’s hand
flies off at the wrist
then the other’s
until nothing is left
but the reddened earth.
VIII. POSTCARD FROM ROSH HANIKRA
No sleep last night, too sun burnt to use sheet. Up early & out to do grottos. A new hat to beat heat. Just been told to wait inside this funky café. Helicopters & gunfire—hope they’re just practicing. Tanks & bulldozers & Lebanese people swarming checkpoint—fighting must be right over border. Guidebook says Beirut to Alexandria railway once ran right below these chalky cliffs. Ice plant blossoms blaze like crazy. Great food sure shoots my diet to hell. I’ll mail this back at hotel in Nahariyah.
IX. HAIFA: BAT GALLIM
amid date tree debris and litter of eucalypts
with trumped-up Mediterranean memories I sit
in ceremonial preference
for instant nostalgia
my face in the cracked pane glass a souvenir
*
along the base of Mount Carmel
a container ship sails low into Haifa Port
and an antique train skirts the coastline
past the stones at Akko
beyond the sunlit cliffs of Rosh Hanikra
below the clouds carrying the sea inland
to Jordan or Syria
*
this song is a pair of footprints
set down in sand already shifting, a fish
about to be caught, an empty freighter
riding high out to sea
*
the owner rolls out the afternoon awning then
within seconds
the click of high heels
the head of hennaed hair
the rings bracelets necklace
moving between me and the sea
she appears between entries in the book
one long look between our eyes
first two then the others
then the foreign foreign accent
the whole bit
*
the ritual café entry in another man’s land
the once beloved
soon I will be leaving you
*
at the esplanade’s end
on black basalt and limestone gray
three of Christ’s wives down from Stella Maris
to lift their hems and bare white calves
to the warm October waters of Haifa Bay
*
at Sunday School I wandered
across the Holy Land taped up
alongside the poster of Jesus
in long hair and striped robe
[sung to the tune of OH TANNENBAUM]
“First the line of Coast we make,
Meron next, a marshy lake,
Then the Sea of Galilee
Exactly east of Carmel Sea.
The Jordan River runs through both
To the Dead Sea on the South,
And the Great Sea westward lies
Stretching far as sunset skies.”
Mount Carmel sports radars and weaponry
when all that’s not named or numbered is suspect
a broken window the reflection I traffic in
images to sweep me away
*
a guest apart
watching my manners
the ghost I dance to a peninsular end
invents a new solitude then pauses
to consider how far out is
*
never at ease
watching their manners
listening for the ripple of last words
flicked off at rushing water
I throw off dead letters
taking leave
*
the ones beloved
soon I will be leaving you
*
as if none of us will ever know a natural death.