strangeness & newness, bricks, you, my father, colonies & remains
If you ever visit Israel, you will find that this is a very strange country. Oh, all countries are strange. I will not begin to compare. But something here is strange.
Something is, and I will keep saying this until people realize what I mean, going on here.
Something is going on everywhere.
This is a poem that is tangential to that point.
The Artists Colony In Tzfat (let no one walk in our remains)
there is something in wandering
the jerusalem brick alleyways
of this strange new city
with you
you are strange and new
With you I walk the desolate alleys of this city
half an hours drive away and marvel
what wind blew all these coca cola bottles here
what tornado took all the drinkers away
what magic transported all these artists away from the artists colony and left these
coca cola bottles
empty studios
portraits of gnarled olive trees
pickaxes stuck
in buildings
half demolished.
here and there a hasidic woman passes
her head covered and dressed in bright pink
ten children, at the least, follow the
baby carriage she bears
what is alive here, and what is dead?
this is a question that may be asked anywhere but here
in this strange new city with you
with strange small doors that we cannot fit in
with strange signs, saying "OPEN" but
nothing is open
What is alive here, what is dead? Even the signs
"Artist lived here"
are rusted and barely stand the wind.
My father walks besides us
scratching his head, going here
then there
Thirty five years ago he was younger than we are now
He walked these streets when there was life but now
the only new things are signs advertising real estate agencies
He scratches his head, ducks into a corner
"A studio," he says, returning
Alive, dead? Somewhere in between
He is not sure where everyone has gone
He is not sure how no one thought
to tell him.
We walk these beautiful streets, you and I
these strange new alleyways 2000 years old
these beautiful houses barricaded, or open only
to the dust
where have we gone?
where have they gone?
flippantly, you say,
"We should form a writers colony."
Perhaps we will.
At least when that, too,
will die
I think,
staring around
we will leave no desolation
to explore the mystery of our vanishing.
We will be gone like the wind
a scattered page here
a notebook cover there.
Let no one walk in our remains.
Something is, and I will keep saying this until people realize what I mean, going on here.
Something is going on everywhere.
This is a poem that is tangential to that point.
The Artists Colony In Tzfat (let no one walk in our remains)
there is something in wandering
the jerusalem brick alleyways
of this strange new city
with you
you are strange and new
With you I walk the desolate alleys of this city
half an hours drive away and marvel
what wind blew all these coca cola bottles here
what tornado took all the drinkers away
what magic transported all these artists away from the artists colony and left these
coca cola bottles
empty studios
portraits of gnarled olive trees
pickaxes stuck
in buildings
half demolished.
here and there a hasidic woman passes
her head covered and dressed in bright pink
ten children, at the least, follow the
baby carriage she bears
what is alive here, and what is dead?
this is a question that may be asked anywhere but here
in this strange new city with you
with strange small doors that we cannot fit in
with strange signs, saying "OPEN" but
nothing is open
What is alive here, what is dead? Even the signs
"Artist lived here"
are rusted and barely stand the wind.
My father walks besides us
scratching his head, going here
then there
Thirty five years ago he was younger than we are now
He walked these streets when there was life but now
the only new things are signs advertising real estate agencies
He scratches his head, ducks into a corner
"A studio," he says, returning
Alive, dead? Somewhere in between
He is not sure where everyone has gone
He is not sure how no one thought
to tell him.
We walk these beautiful streets, you and I
these strange new alleyways 2000 years old
these beautiful houses barricaded, or open only
to the dust
where have we gone?
where have they gone?
flippantly, you say,
"We should form a writers colony."
Perhaps we will.
At least when that, too,
will die
I think,
staring around
we will leave no desolation
to explore the mystery of our vanishing.
We will be gone like the wind
a scattered page here
a notebook cover there.
Let no one walk in our remains.