To Yona (z’l)
One summer night,
we four decided to be more
than settlers: to be regular people
in a city of a hundred thousand
Arabs. We dragged out the kitchen chairs,
set them under the only tree—
I brought a pitcher of lemonade and we held
our sweating glasses on our knees.
The city that usually smelled of goats
and smoke and middle-eastern spice,
was filled with the sweet evening smell of baked grass.
There was no sound of traffic or gunfire;
even the muezzins were quiet. The full moon’s
light dripped down between the branches
and sparkled in our glasses like bits of ice.
We laughed with the surprise
of the night, the light, the lemonade.
Your wife and I were both pregnant,
and we were sewing ourselves
into the fabric of Jewish history;
settling the land.
Only a few years later a terrorist’s
knife cut your smile
away from everywhere but our memories;
your wife would raise eight children
alone. Like other ancient
mothers, she never left; everyday climbs
the ponderous stone steps,
to the Cave of the Macpela, enters
the hoary smell of clay and damp,
old carpets and parchment; she sways
near scrolls locked
beyond a hundred keys.
Later, my husband and I loosened
stitches, tore ourselves
away for the blessing
of our own house, like Abraham’s,
facing east, where every day
the sun rises gold up between our toes;
where hands sunk in loamy soil
can sprout green that spreads lush
satisfaction like a step into a cool
pool of water, like the smell
of food before that first bite, like a tent
with four doors and welcome mats,
where all are welcome, all are invited in.
