Young Lives Dished up on a Silver Platter

As luck would have it, the conclusion of Israel's spring festive season coincides neatly with the last week of Global Poetry Writing Month.

Like everywhere else, the Corona pandemic means public events and general social interaction are happening mostly online in Israel.

Now almost routine were last night's streamed Yom Hazikaron - Day of Remembrance activities - that locally to me also included a Zoom study session based on The Silver Platter by Natan Alterman, a much loved patriotic work regularly read and discussed at this period.
Also typical, I suggest. of the frenzy of Israeli life in almost all aspects, is that the site to which I provide the link offers not one but four optional English translations of the original Hebrew. As three are anonymous, I reproduce the first by David P. Stern.

…And the land will grow still
Crimson skies dimming, misting
Slowly paling again
Over smoking frontiers
As the nation stands up
Torn at heart but existing
To receive its first wonder
In two thousand years
As the moment draws near
It will rise, darkness facing Stand straight in the moonlight In terror and joy

...When across from it step out
Towards it slowly pacing In plain sight of all A young girl and a boy
Dressed in battle gear, dirty
Shoes heavy with grime
On the path they will climb up
While their lips remain sealed
To change garb, to wipe brow
They have not yet found time Still bone weary from days And from nights in the field
Full of endless fatigue
And all drained of emotion
Yet the dew of their youth
Is still seen on their head
Thus like statues they stand
Stiff and still with no motion And no sign that will show If they live or are dead
Then a nation in tears
And amazed at this matter Will ask: who are you? And the two will then say
With soft voice: We--
Are the silver platter On which the Jews' state Was presented today
Then they fall back in darkness
As the dazed nation looks And the rest can be found In the history books.

© Natalie Wood (28 April 2020)

HOW THE CORONA PASSED OVER

My kids spent Corona Passover wandering like Arameans,

skipping upstairs and down, inside and out, playing the

goat, waving and blowing safe kisses at Gran

on social media.

My kids spent Corona Passover like a lost flock of sheep,

wagging their hands like the tails of spring lambs,

begging Bo Peep to find them.

Oh, my sons, my abandoned sons.

Oh, their new-born brother.

Oh, my darling girl.

Oh, my sons’ absent mother!

© Natalie Wood (20 April 2020)

Passover Super Moon 2020

(With apologies to Yip Harburg and Billy Rose)

Is it really a super moon

floating over a bloated sea

lighting a way to save dear

souls if they’d believe in me?

We are together as we’re apart

on each side of a toughened

glass –

forever entwined in a

wondrous web -

if you’d believe in me.

Masked but  naked,

enslaved by drudge,

we may live as free men yet,

if you'd believe in me.

© Natalie Wood (12 April 2020)

Passover in a Year of Modern Plague

Passover in a Year of Modern Plague

"What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves”.  (Albert Camus, ‘The Plague’, June 1947).

Blood

In a time of plague,

 I watch the carnivals of hate

roll by, but won’t participate.

I shop. But fixed on red alert,  

I hide behind my Purim mask, now

sanitised; advise the salesman

that my purchases are few.

Frogs

Perhaps something cooling

for a head that’s spawned

heaped coals on fire and

other stuff that’s extra soothing

for a throat shot through with

knives.

Lice

Once, my distracted mind insists,

on days like this, an ancient

king’s wise fool dared throw

the apple of his eye,

not on him, but at a mystic

man of science’s brow.

A-tishoo! A-tishoo! I can’t

buy a tissue. I must lie down.

Flies

Here’s time for holy

men to find martyrs many,

but forbidden to heal by touch,

their rooms are deserts –

lie arid, empty.

Pestilence

A Catholic Father clings to Jesus;

 What’s sickness, mine? What’s gone

amiss? Rav Mazuz bursts gay

folks’ pride. ‘Your way is community suicide’. 

                    

Boils

Blind granddad is a tailor,

he sews at Alum Rock.

Sleek rats squat on his windowsill

tho’ he’s cut from finest cloth.

Hail

‘Hail’ – which may also

speak ‘farewell’ - come near –

but not too close – we’re all in this

together - but apart.

 All borders shut. So let us,

rather, gather at safe

distance on our balconies.

There, we whistle, stomp and

cheer ‘hurrah’ in humble thanks

to those who work to save us now.

Locusts

No swarm of guests to lean

left about my heirloomed table.

No rosemary for remembered rue,

Instead, twice dipped, our new enslavement

will be forever etched in lineal pain.

Darkness

Sand burdened winds scythe

unwary heads.  Forsaken

streets expose unblinking eyes atop

shuttered public places, sacred spaces

that shed unwonted tears as mustard-muddy

clouds scud by.

Killing of the First Born

No blood-streaked lintel, no

fragrant hyssop helps. God’s

messenger arrives to take his tithe.

Once only a kid, an enfeebled lion

learns he is to roar no more,

his work on earth is done.

So too, here, is mine.  

© Natalie Wood (24 March 2020)