FESTIVAL
The moon came up over Jerusalem
Blood-red
An hour later it was white
Bled to death.
The breath of memory revives
On the Fifteenth Day of Ab.
The spirit and the flesh
Don’t clash when men and women
Walk in orange groves
To reinvigorate the moon.
God knew the left hand
And the right
When Lot chose
The Plain of Ha-Yarden
And Abram — Canaan.
An excruciating noise of car brakes
Comes from the Valley of Hinnom.
Jerusalem is ours.
YAM KINNERET (THE SEA OF GALILEE)
Galilee is a lake of reasonable size,
Unless immensity is measured down
In dreams, in darkness.
Then it becomes an ocean.
Distant sails are birds trapped
On the unreflecting surface,
As if savage fish below
Pull at their wings.
With casual intensity
And such immensity
Are new dreams made from old.
EZEKIEL
On the fifth day
In the fourth month
Of the thirtieth year
Among the captives by the river
A storm wind came out of the north.
Ezekiel the priest saw visions:
Saw Israel
Had four faces
Four wings
Four faces:
The face of a man
The face of a lion
The face of an ox
The face of an eagle.
That was the vision of Ezekiel.
THE ROCK
Moses drew water from a cliff.
I set my cup
Till it was filled.
Water saved me, and I drank,
Reflecting on
The shape of flame
Of how a fire needs
Putting down
By swords of water.
IN ISRAEL, DRIVING TO THE DEAD SEA
I drive a car. Cars don’t
Figure much in poems.
Poets do not like them,
Which is strange to me.
Poets do not make cars
Never have, not
One nut or bit of Plexiglass
Passes through their fingers.
No reason why they should.
To make a bolt or screw
Is not poetic. To fit a window:
Is that necessary?
Likewise an engine
Makes a noise. It smells,
And runs you off too fast.
What’s more you have to sit
As fixed at work as that
Engine-slave who made it.
Nevertheless I drive a car
With pleasure. It makes my life poetic
I float along and tame
The road against all laws
Of nature. I stay alive.
Who says a poet shouldn’t drive
On a highway which descends so low
Yet climbs so high
From Jerusalem to Jericho?
EIN GEDI
(After Shirley Kaufman’s essay: ‘The Poet and Place’)
When David went from Jerusalem
The itch of death was in the air.
The salt sea bloomed.
King Saul bit himself and followed.
The cave had no windows to steam and view.
David’s gloom was David’s soul, and hid him.
Whether to go or stay became
A cloak that fitted when he went.
After the mournful grackle’s note
Saul came searching for the kill
But never felt the sword that cut his cloak.
Darkness is our place.
The cave gave David birth:
Memory was born, and all his songs.
EVE
In Israel I looked out of the window
And saw Eve.
Her hair was so black
I called her Midnight
But no answer came.
Her eyes were amber
Jewels made at midday
When she looked at me.
She crossed Gehenna
In her sandals.
My daylight wanted her,
A few-minute love-affair
Lasted forever,
As she entered her City.
from Tides and Stone Walls, 1986
RECEDING TIDE
The tide is fickle.
After going out it comes back.
The moon sees to that.
It’s what the tide reveals
When it huffs and leaves
That means so much,
And what the tide covers
On nibbling back
That opens our eyes:
Archipelagos left unexplored
And rivers unsurveyed:
But before the meaning’s known
The regimental rush of waves
Is preceded by
The brutal skirmishing of dreams.
BRICKS
Bricks build walls
They erect homes
Both rise up
Men make them out of earth and clay.
Water tightens them
Ovens bake them to withstand
Bullets and dour weather.
Rectilinear and hard
Red or blue
Porous or solid
Beautifully stacked:
They invite the mason’s hand
To choose.
Bombs are the enemy of bricks:
Stroke them tenderly,
And share their warmth.
LANDSCAPE — SENNEN, CORNWALL
How many died when the height was taken?
Upslope the armoured horses went:
Old refurbished iron-men
Zig-zagging from rocks,
And knights already fallen.
The cunning defenders
Jabbed soft underbellies,
Brought riders down
On gleaming daggers.