By Ada Aharoni
A Green Week
A week like fresh mint,
a green week spreading
its fragrance to the roots
of being
"Have a green week!"
My father used to bless us
on Saturday nights in Cairo,
when he came back from the "Gates of
Heaven"
the grand synagogue in Adli street
"Have a green year"
he beamed,
brandishing a fresh, fragrant mint branch
over our keen curly heads -
but don't keep it just to yourselves,
that flourishing green week -
give it back
to the world
fully blossoming.
Who will give me
a green week
now that he's gone?
Now that the Gates of Heaven
are shut?
Only peace,
Only a fragrant mint peace.
Mamica
You knew Rousseau's "Emile"
Instinctively by heart,
Let us roam barefoot
In golden fields of home,
Sleep with open windows wide
Gave us all you had
With full two hands
Of bedstead copper angels,
Sometimes you forgot to eat
But never to feed us.
Whatever we did or said
Was a diamond mine -
Your children were your little gods.
Even when I left you and France
For a country I loved,
You were neither hurt nor angry,
Gave your daughter to the kibbutz
With a smile followed by a tear.
Today we worship you in return,
Like a queen emerging
From Paris metro's belly,
To Bat-Galim shore,
As in Alexandria of yore,
Mother, mamica,
Standing smiling on a shell
Crowned by love.
A Jewish Woman's Prayer
Bless you Oh Lord
For having made me a woman,
For if you had made me a man
I would have had to pray -
"Bless you Oh Lord for not having
made me a woman."
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
A Bridge Of Peace
"They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
and none shall make them
afraid." (Micah, 4, 4)
My Palestinian sister,
Daughter of Abraham, like me,
Let 's build a sturdy bridge
Form your olive world to mine,
From my orange world to yours,
Above the boiling pain
Of acid rain prejudice -
And hold human hands high
Full of free stars
Of twinkling peace
My Palestinian sister, daughter of Abraham,
I do not want to be your oppressor
You do not want to be my oppressor,
Or your jailer
Or my jailer,
We do not want to make each other afraid
Under our vines
And under our fig trees
Blossoming on a silvered horizon
Above the bruising and the bleeding
Of
poisoned gases and scuds.
So, my Palestinian sister,
Let us build a bridge of
Jasmine understanding
Where each shall sit with her baby
Under her vine and under her fig tree -
And none shall make them afraid
AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID.
The Second Exodus
Today, I bring again my grain vessel
to the docks of your granary, father -
while breathing the wheat smells you loved,
me in Dagon Silo in Haifa,
you far way back in Cairo.
Joseph in Egypt land, Canaanite jugs,
ritual bronze sickles from temples,
crushing-stones, mill-stones and mortars -
all link me back to you
on old rusty scales.
I remember your orange-beige office
in Cairo's Mouski,
with deaf Tohami weighing
the heavy sacks of flour and grain
on old rusty scales,
and me listening unaware
to the birds' chirped warning
on the beams of your ceiling:
"Wandering Jew, open your Jewish eyes,
you will soon have to spread your wings
again, and look for new nest."
Mighty Dagon's giant arms storing in bulk,
fill my own silo with tears
that you are not here with me
to view this wonder
deftly handling bread to Israel - the land you so
loved
but are not buried in.
For you dear father, I plant today a garden of
grain,
for you, who
always taught us
how to sow.
You ponder hard in front of hesitating microphone,
Your eyebrows arch puzzlement over the screen,
Nuances of troubled expression on your handsome
Semitic face,
Crack and re-crack every query in the air:
Do I really feel at home here?
And if I do, do they feel I feel at home here,
Am at home here?
Do I feel an Israeli Arab? Or an Arab Israeli?
Or a Palestinian? Or all of these?
Or none of these?
Suddenly the answer blurts out like a raven in
flight
Escaping its dark cage:
“My mixed identity, how it hurts!”
The raven flies straight into my eyes with claws and
beak,
And I remember my own rootless wound
In Egypt land - And I hurt your dangling hurt,
My Semitic cousin in pain.
The questions stir Nile and Jordan visions
Flowing intense churning -
"And if a Palestinian State is founded
Would you go and live there?
Would you feel better?"
Again the puckered brows locked,
Strained jaw-muscles, glowing sorrowful eyes
Then gently, like a dove swooping
On its way to peaceful green woods:
"My home is in Galilee. But I would feel better
if there were a Palestinian State,
For then my Arab brothers would not fight
The land I live in -
Anymore."
The Sulha * Pomegranate
Wait, don't open Sulha's Pomegranate yet
First tell me, why doesn't the world know
that you too and a million other Jews
of Arab Lands like you,
had to spread their wings wide
just like us Palestinians -
and flee with the wind and nothing, too?
"Ele Fat Mat" - What is past is dead.
Why is it important to you,
Shall we open the pomegranate?”
Not yet.
Not yet.
For me it is the beautiful saving face of Sulha,
Shining her honorable smile at me,
The uncovering of her black veil
Revealing
double truth and justice,
She wisely shows we're not the only underdogs,
That tragedy, as in all wars, is always on both
sides
“Welcome Sulha! So, let's open the pomegranate?”
Not yet. Not yet.
It's much easier to pave the peace path
Arm in arm with hopeful Sulha -
two tragedies do not cancel each other -
but she somehow makes it easier,
when we know the other side met
Sulha's terms a long time ago
Wait, don't open the pomegranate yet,
Now I can identify with you my Middle East cousin
and you can identify with me
my cousin and mutual victim too
Now, we can open Sulha's Pomegranate
Let’s taste her healing, plentiful, ruby grains.
* Sulha:
Reconciliation, in Arabic
To Izmir, To Izmir
In Toledo, more than 500 years ago
my great, great, great grandmother Regina,
fleeing the Inquisition's torture wheels
poured her Spanish tears into velvet black veil
and sailed over the crimson waves
with thousands of sisters and brothers to Izmir, to
Izmir
She had to leave behind her beloved illuminating
poems,
her ancient Bible and golden painted Haggada,
her father's illustrious scientific parchments -
her whole Spanish Golden past floating on Golden
Fleece,
as she sailed with the stars to Izmir, to Izmir
The bird stopped flying - "El Pasharo
vola"
the heart stopped crying - "El Koarasson
yora" -
as it preened its traumatic feathers
and nestled cosily on quaint new roof
of beautiful, warm Izmir.
The Turkish mosaic haven lavished filigree
hospitality
sheltering a new hope in Regina's honey eyes
on the azure, silvery shores of Izmir, Izmir
Suddenly Regina's beautiful, noble figure
stands majestically before me
whispering a Ladino message:
"What we should be celebrating today
is the saving of a quarter of a million
of our brothers and sisters, more than
500 years ago by brave Turkey,
and not the cruel expulsion by Spain..."
I listen closely, nod and write this poem.
Now Regina smiles again as we fly together
over the wide open gates of Izmir, of Izmir,
on the way to peace in golden Jerusalem.
To An Egyptian Soldier
Dedicated to the Egyptian Pilot who appeared on Israeli television
during the Yom Kippur War, (October 1973)
I saw you on television last night
bewildered in our land,
your eyes were dim
and you mumbled under your shield:
"I want to go back to my young wife
and four-year-old son."
And I wanted to tell you
Egyptian soldier,
I know that this time
they told you -
this land is yours
clutch it back with firm hand.
Yet tonight, under Israeli skies
you ask yourself:
"Why am I here
and not with my young wife and child?"
You see, Egyptian soldier,
you will always have your Nile
and your bed to turn to,
but if we lose there's only the sea.
I hope you go back to your wife
and four-year-old son soon,
and our fathers come back to theirs,
this time, after a quarter of a century of strife -
both of you together, Egyptian and Israeli soldiers,
bearing the long longed-for
trophy of peace.
In Memory Of My Uncle Jacques
Bohemian laughter and moustache
Mustard tan, mustered life
With one arm
Villa in flowered Doki
with monkey and pool
golden fish --
Dark musty hole in Paris
crowning six creaky flights
Broad jokes crackled
next to the stove -- on the stove
coffee and magnitude.
Life is a hoax
he laughingly confided,
roam it in open car with or without
coin or hole in pocket
From Green Island to Rome
Before you leave home.
With one arm -- not one leg.
The bubble of life
burst with the leg -
he roams no more.
But warm laughter and chuckled joke
Ring and roam.
The Sapling Of Peace
Written on the occasion of the Geneva Convention,
(17 December 1973)
The mothers bore children,
The children had to go to war.
In October, children ceased to be,
End of October, the fire ceased.
The distraught mothers and fathers
And what was left of their children,
Could do naught in their scorching sorrow
But plant, a frail sapling
In the desert sand
Under the burnt skeleton of tanks
Fringed with human limbs
No shade or crutch could help.
The sapling was carried to Geneva
By sure hands.
Was watered by the blue lake,
By the Bible and the Koran,
And by the wise Tagore
Who sang of love.
Despite its desert origins:
The years of passion and fire
Inflaming the thorns of anger and despair,
It sprouted tiny green leaves
With amazing patterns
of kaleidoscopic dewdrops
Of peace.
My sea bound leg through the ladder window
Was suddenly pinned to mid air by the piercing pin-glitter
of
A beady charcoal eye!
In Camp Caesar under Alexandria's blue skies
A hieroglyphic presence on a watermelon skin
crippled the paralyzed stillness
I did not cry, I did not recoil, but gaped
transfixed
Afraid to tremble, lest I disturb the mystery
of our silent tryst.
He watched from every brown loop of his long-lithe
body
While his face breathed back on me
Overpowering my frozen blood
Then I knew!
I knew that he existed!
He ominously hissed on my mind that he was there
And would always be there lurking darkly in my
backyard
Ambushing my descent from the ladder
To dart his calculated spring.
"Watermelon skins draw snakes," Old Fatima
reiterated,
Wobbling her white head wisely.
But deep inside me I knew that if I removed the skin
He would still come back.
So, I said nothing
There in Cleopatra's Alexandria
But buried my hypnotizing secret
Under giant roots of silences
Where I myself
Feared to peep.
********