Inspired by Yehuda Amichai (2000),Open closed open. Translated by Chana Bloch & Chana Kronfeld
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- My life is the gardener of my body. The brain – a hothouse closed tight
holds the seeds planted last Mother’s Day, a son on the cusp of loving
on his own, loving beyond the realm of a childhood bedroom –
under the plaid cotton sheets I picked out for him
under the firebrick dragon woodcut I hung on his wall
under the quilt of suns and moons, masculine and feminine, child-sized
as if by sleeping ‘neath interlocking squares of soft night images
I could infuse him with my dreams . . .
to feel safe, always safe
to feel loved, always loved
to journey far and wide, cross borders of time and space
yet never visit a place where he was unwanted
never know coldness that chafes the thin skin of the heart
travel the labyrinth of seasons and play, a child whose
face and soul remain unscarred
until he returns to me.
For what mother doesn’t watch the changes of the sun,
the lengthening and shortening of the days, cyclical and known,
the way we watch all our cycles, tides rising and falling,
moons coming and going,
and await her son’s return?
Long past the time he sprouted, grew unruly,
vines and flowers tumbling past the beams of the raised garden,
needing more space
than the 40-square-foot garden could contain
the bed in which his own seed was planted
a maternal hothouse, damp and moist,
the perfect specimen of symbiotic first love,
cultivated and tended, this hybrid species,
transplanted from the Eden that must expel him
to awaken soon in a bed I’ll never see,
in tousled in sheets I won’t wash
with a lover I won’t recognize
whose face I couldn’t see in the quilted squares of the blanket
folded now, neatly resting
on the vacant bed.
The plants no longer bearing fruit have all been removed
from the garden
planted on Mother’s Day
by the son who hadn’t yet tasted the skin of the lover with the face his mother didn’t pick out
for him.
- I’ve never been in those places where I’ve never been
Memory, that trickster, catalogues events that couldn’t be
as if they were, dialogues if only I’d had,
leaving asymptotic love
approaching, always approaching, but never crossing
Wishes revealed by the waves, stones and shells buried in wet sand,
my heartbeats, our waves, cannot be counted,
the number remaining defies me, ever-dwindling,
I approach my ultimate crossing.
- And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt:
from womanhood, too. Waters have parted, dryness creeping in.
Before me the desert of a womb that will hold no other,
behind me verdant greens.
This is my life span.
- Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open.
I know what it is to close, the poppy folded inward
when the sun dips below the horizon.
I open cautiously, anticipating wrath like pounding rain to bend me
punish me, use me as the narcotic he needed, then
break my stem, blanket the earth with my delicate orange petals.
Open, closed, open. That’s all we are.
- What then is my life span? Like shooting a self-portrait
to document one moment, come, then gone,
revealing hair graying at my temples,
tiredness in my eyes,
smile lines making little furrows in my cheeks,
my tears flow like runoff carving a permanent path in the earth.
I am more than halfway through my life span, maybe even two thirds.
More is over than awaits. Yet my tears will taste the same.
- I wasn’t one of the six million who died in the Shoah,
it is not my arm inked with purple, it is not my blood on the bricks in Egypt. I wasn’t one of the 2,977 in the September 11th massacre, the 129 in Paris, the four in the Hyper Cacher kosher market, just before sunset, purchasing a challah or perhaps a bit of fish to make a sweet and peaceful Shabbat dinner, the way I visit Bakery Nouveau every Friday for challah, the Sabbath beginning for me, as maybe it did for all before me, with preparations, the anticipation of the golden braided loaf under its cloth cover, two tapers lit, wine in a goblet. I have survived every attempt to eradicate my people. Spared – is this luck? – my soul is forever inked by terror, my eyes forever burned by images of the walking dead, the horror of yet another roll call. I beseech the night sky for that which will keep my son’s name off a list. I could scratch my way to breath after almost any other name, my treason revealed by bone-deep relief that my Jewish child is still alive, sleeping peacefully under the night sky quilt.
- I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment
new growth is being cultivated, the sinews that tie my muscles to bones
are ready to tie me to you, and you, and you.
Here, just here, from the hiding places we will choose to leave,
here we will find one another
plant another garden
live lifespans that arc until we are too old and brittle for one more breath
to die naturally
at the right time
at the right place
in the arms of the right lover.
This is my religion.
This I could believe with perfect faith at this very moment.