Poetica Magazine, Reflections of Jewish Thought

 

Special edition

poetry, short stories, prose and art.

 

Please submit at any time

 poeticamag@aol.com

 

 

 

 

"Lower Golan Heights" by Yehoshua Halevi

In a twilight dusk, there is a place in Jerusalem where tall feathery trees stand and surround buildings from another time; an era of grandeur, a natural form of grace, beauty, and endless soft gentleness. On the sandy, rounded, rock-strewn hills of Judea, there is scattered scrub brush and another kind of tree — a young seedling low to the ground with new roots just planted, with straight upright branches greeting the pure blue sky. This is the young Israel, the branches of new beginnings, tentative yet strong, small yet tenacious, amidst the barren rubble of ancient rocks and red, gold earth. Here and there a camel wanders, lonely, still at home in a timeless land.

 

 In the West, we witness as ancient two thousand year old forests of Douglas Fir and Hemlock are decimated by modern greed. Two thousand year growth wiped out in one fell swoop! Wildlife and the delicate balance of tree owl and fur creature run homeless, as millions of acres of spruce and pine are lost forever.  There is no regard or second thought given to their unique preciousness and their irreplaceable beauty.

 

There in the east, every solitary branch, root, and trunk is whispered to by prayers to nourish their growth, to coax them into existence. This existence is fragile, yet sturdy. The newly planted trees, silent sentinels, like our ancestors standing guard over the land, witnesses to our ancient past. The mounds of dust, dirt and rock radiate eons of life and death, beckoning us to remember we are as the dust. We watch, as millions of layers rise and extend down to the shores of the sea; the Dead Sea, of salt, heavily concentrated salt where nothing lives, the lowest point in the world. Along the road bordering the Dead Sea, opposite Jordan we ride, as the sun dances on the surface, glinting gold in the early morning, while palm and date groves appear and recede into the approaching noonday heat.

Layers upon layers of rock and sand and earth mark the ancient passages of time and witness the love of a people who have given their blood for centuries to live in its desolate wasteland, unforgiving, unfathomable and magnetic through to the very core of the earth's time; witness to such infinite struggle and love of a land so unforgiving, unyielding, magnetic. We ride along the precipice of time and hover there at the brink of disaster, never knowing how close we are approaching the edge, only to pull back to safer retreat where we think we are safe, but still always speeding up ever closer to the edge. The towering layers of dust layered time layered life can be toppled with a single drop of rain.

 

We are in the middle of nowhere amidst mountains of sand, after riding for hours. A young girl in army greens gets off the bus in mid-desert, hauls her heavy sack across her shoulder and walks down the road far, far into the hills. One sees traces of low buildings barely discernible in the distant haze. We are defending the Israeli-Jordanian border as one lone girl walks into the dunes. This lone girl is our defense. Next are palms, rows upon rows; a farm of tall palms and then cypress groves.  How do they get them so green?   

 

No nation has conquered this desert like Israel.  The land gives to no one and never has through all the ages of conquest by the mightiest nations on the face of the earth, only to us.  The land belongs to Israel.  It grows for no other hand.

 

The cacophony of loud music and raucous teenagers is disturbed by the sudden appearance of an Israeli soldier.  He stands in the aisle looking at the tourists who take all the seats, and who, in turn, find themselves suddenly seeing him for the first time. He stands proud and tall like a lion. It is also upon him that the future of world Jewry hangs. He fights the wars, he lives that life, and still he waits for us to give him a seat.  I fight also, my own private wars on another plane. I don't know which future of the world depends on their outcome. His is more evident as he stands there, black eyes flashing, nostrils flared, breathing long, slow, deep breaths, and waiting.

 

Be careful and watch yourself that you do not forget what you have seen with your own eyes. Do not let what your eyes have seen pass from your minds as long as you live.

 

 

Barbara Kitai has been teaching Writing and Literature at City University of New York for over ten years, and written about Israel based on research and travel for over 15 years. Barbara has written about and done exhibitions of photography of the exquisite beauty of nature, the people and the cities both of Israel and America as well as the Gardens of artist Claude Monet.  As much as possible, Barbara tries to promote the love she has for Israel and correct any distortions about it as well as to reveal its unique existence and infinite value.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Torn Flag in Jerusalem by Yehoshua Halevi

 

 

 

 

 

Zionism

   by Lindsay Soberano-Wilson

 

 

"And we would often talk of Palestine. Their parents, like mine, had lacked the courage to wind up their affairs and emigrate while there was still time. We decided that, if we were granted our lives until the liberation, we would not stay in Europe a day longer. We would take the next boat to Haifa."

                                                                                                                Eli Wiesel's Night

 

 

Then, there, at that time, Palestine was only a dream

but the word "dream" only belittles the severity of the circumstances

It was "the" hope--the heaven amid Dante's Inferno

it was unrealizable, unfathomable, just an idea, a name

a place, a home, a goal, a pulse . . .

. . .  "the" pulse that rang through the skies while

black smoke copulated

 

And now, now, the eyes that were never

able to see her naked, illustrious body

see her through my brown eyes

And they see her figure even more defined

at night by the candlelight

 

The longing of a million x 6 throbbing hearts

can still be heard tempting G-d

the souls who were never fed

the souls hanging in Israel's hands

passing in and out of us

looking for breath to get them there

through us and with us

 

And sometimes the sounds are deafening

their voices are like shrieks of piercing wind

winding up and down a subway tunnel

and then thinning out

because now, some of us are deaf, blind, mute, dumb and numb

 

We can't decipher their voices

the English is too loud

too many are indifferent

and wrapped up in the "self"

to fathom that they are here because of them

to fathom that they are a link in a chain --

a chain that leads to Judah's tribe

 

 

 

Lindsay Soberano-Wilson holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University and a Masters of Arts degree in English from the University of Toronto. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have been published in various Canadian publications, such as The Jewish Tribune, The Canadian Jewish News, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Running with Scissors, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, and Yalla Journal. She teaches high school English and Drama in Toronto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do Not Worry

     by Hanoch Guy

 

 

The burned bus will repaint itself.

It will spring brand new seats and new tires.

The windows will all be reglazed.

The steering wheel will turn easily

and the gas tank will straighten itself.

The Ford sedan will throw out the explosives and the homicide bombers

and return to its rightful owner in Jerusalem.

The eucalyptus tree will regrow its burned roots,

put forth new branches,

The asphalt will repair itself with a shiny black coat.

The red soil will become smooth and shiny after the rain,

The barbed wire will rid itself of the torn clothes and the

Arab laborer will be its old rusty self again.

The bereaved parents will open the shutters

and put flowers on the windowsill.

The amputees will grow new hands and feet.

The torn limbs and torsos will form young and muscular bodies.

The purple school bag will be clean and new

and contain neatly the tasty cheese sandwich

together with the sharpened color pencils.

 

Bus number 730 will resume its regular route and

the old train will carry orange crates and old auto parts to port

and whistle by the rail crossing.

 

 

 

Hanoch Guy spent his childhood and youth in the small town of Hadera, Israel surrounded by citrus orchards, olive groves and wheat fields. Hanoch explored the deserts of Israel and Sinai and was inspired by their powerful landscapes. He is a bilingual poet in Hebrew and English. Hanoch published poetry in Genre, Poetry Newsletter, Visions International, Feile Feste, Schuylkill Valley, Tracks, The International Journal of Genocide Studies and Poetica, where he won an honorable mention. Hanoch is an Emeritus professor in Temple University.