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Samples from The Joshua Poems
How Come?
“How come?” you ask these days.
“How come there are only two fire trucks
in the fire station? How come this park
is not a stony park and how come stony park
has a fire hydrant? How come you forgot
the shovels and how come hatikva is
on the other side of the tape?”
How come? I wonder. How come? How come?
Life is selection, I could say,
and every yes has its rhyme or reason,
all except for hatikva, which is always
on the other side of the tape.
But at night when I put you to sleep,
after we have read the stories we wrote
during the day about our day,
after I have sung you the songs from my book,
songs of evening and songs of wind,
songs of honey and thorns,
songs of hatikva including hatikva,
and after I have watched you fall asleep,
seen the ups and downs of your lungs
and your softly breathing lips at rest
become the very wind and evening,
become the smooth sweet brush of hand
that sweeps repose to the weary
and comfort to travail,
I want to tell you something else:
how come is hatikva, you are hatikva,
even the song hatikva is hatikva,
and little it matters if it is
on the other side of the tape.
You
After I leave you at school I think of our people,
a ghost people living in the valley of ghosts
buttressing the holy city
they nearly all swear will remain
our eternal undivided capital.
So they say as the rockets fall
and set fire to the country’s edges,
and so you will learn as you grow up
and move into the old city
of Torah and Talmud, chronicles and letters,
and get to see how our ghosts have learned
to outlast even God’s patience.
Perhaps one day you too will despair
of all that storied learning,
of never forget and if I forget,
and discover that history is only as good
as the bad stories we tell ourselves.
But for now you need not bother
with ghosts and rockets and lies,
and for now I do not concern myself
with how you will handle them when you do.
I lament not the world into which you shall grow,
nor even that grow you must.
For after I finish thinking of our people
invariably I think of you,
the nearly four year old lad who today
shot from my hand like a rocket
and ran down the street to his school,
an olive green hood in red rubber boots
that set the sidewalk ablaze
in glorious hallelujah,
flint of laughter and spark of sapphire
and flame of bush to the edge of my heart
that learns what it is to burn
and not be consumed.
This is the undivided city,
the old, the eternal;
this is you.
Beyond despair, beyond repair,
beyond all vows useful and useless,
this is you.
A song in my heart:
you, you, you.
It Is Very, Very Good
My grandson sits at his red table
and into his red bowl filled with yoghurt
he crumbles his piece of banana bread
which he then scoops by the spoonful
into his eager and satisfied mouth,
whispering to himself as he does so,
“it is very, very good.”
Of course it is good, my darling boy,
and even better is your blessing,
and best of all is the sight of your lips
moving over this humble miracle
as Hannah’s lips once moved
when she prayed for her son
and gave thanks for her son
and gave up her son
to the Lord.
Blessed is the Lord, sang Hannah in her heart,
for He raises the poor from the dust
and the beggars from their dunghills
and little boys from their barren mothers.
And we who watch her lips from afar
mumble along in the book of hope
wherein it is said in the beginning
that the Lord she blessed once blessed the world
as you have blessed it this day,
blessed it for the herb bearing seed
that one day would yield your hallelujah
of banana bread and yoghurt.
“It is very good,” He said
of the world He came to regret,
and the words of wonder remain
for ever and ever,
whispering our happiness.