empty hands

open arms

My spurned ones

I stroke their backs
before I start speaking
dreading the distance
the distance that I
that I now will create

וַיְשַׁלַּח אֶת-הַיּוֹנָה

The dove did not return.
Was her mate waiting?

(Did she have a mate?)

The calm place

He takes my breath when he holds me in his eyes.
This room is not for us. We sense we are fidgeting.
Can I show you somewhere?
The trees shelter the bench where we will sit.
Let us go where the wind is, in the twilight.
Take my hand and lead me there.
We will arrive at the calm place.
There, when the time is right,
I will rest my head on your shoulder.

-at Hadar, as part of a class on Shir HaShirim taught by Alicia Ostriker. Parallel to Chapter 7:11-13

שיר ליום השבת

Fall 2009

שיר ליום השבת

השמש רואה את הירח

סבא שלי רואה את סבתא שלי

הם רוקדים בלילה בגן

רגע אחד בארץ של תות גינה

אמא מספרת לי על השמש

אבא מספר לי על הירח

הם רוקדים בצהריים בבית

רגע אחד בארץ של תפוחים

אני מכירה את השמש

ידיד שלי מכיר את הירח

אנחנו רוקדים בבוקר בדרך

רגע אחד בארץ חלב ודבש

רגע אחד בירושלים

To be self-contained

Maybe it's best
to be self-contained,
words wrapped in body,
memories in photo frames
made of femur bones--
laughter in storage
in deepest recesses,
dances in stasis
beneath placid skin--
to leave my walls stripped
of their posters and poems,
my head of its hair
my gait of its bounce
and my neck of its necklaces-- 
to rip the heart from my sleeve
and stuff it back
into my stolid ribcage.
So put your hands on my breast,
push hard
to help the latches close.
Take care not to catch your fingers.

A note to myself, 10/14/2009

life of a piano tuner
spending all the time making sure each individual key sounds good
and good in relation to all the others
but never playing.

each of us working on one note
preparing for our souls to be played

I seek water from the vines

Winter fragments stream around my face.
Bits of earth careen through the air. My breath is dry.
I seek water from the vines, taste for a drop.
Secret, secret water. Secret drop. I cannot find it.
But then--a grape. It bursts in my mouth. Juice.
It does not feed me. But I have no more thirst.
I settle down and wait for daybreak.
My beloved will come from the West.

-at Hadar, as part of a class on Shir HaShirim taught by Alicia Ostriker. Guiding word per line: winter, earth, vines, secret, grape, feed, daybreak, my beloved

Henna

If we could just share in the smell of the henna
breathe it in deeply and nestle in closer
trace with our fingers the lines of the patterns
whose color is close to the hue of my freckles