Ribbons of smoke ink,

the glass

bleeds late night sky,

knocked over by the hand 

of an exacting scribe...

She screwed up!

And now there is no Torah!

Only messy splotches!

A generation is lost!

 

Lonesomeness

dyes in like indigo through parchment fibers

inky tendrils 

curl up like witchy fingers

in my veins

and I hurt

in the spaces between my bones.

All of us feel isolation

at one time or another

doing such painstaking work.

 

I try so hard not to drink down

their poison 

but it leaks through me

and I get angry, just like you say 

I should never do!

 

Well, imperviousness

may seem a virtue to you!

 

But you are not made of plastic

and I can see looking back

a little boy

his bottom lip full of sass

and his eyes welled up with

the slippery ice path

my ancestors took

through the Pale of Settlement.

 

Don't fret, I love his

high voice and nerdy pastimes

no matter what ruddy faced

sweaty ham headed

playground bullies tell you;

 

I would prefer that boy

a hundred times over

any soldier in the Israeli army

over any Paul Newman

over any Bibi Netanyahu

over anyone they say is

more man than you.

 

Let them taunt

Let them kill

Let them lie

because they cannot

map over

our age old line

which you 

with your master paintbrush draw

outward,

bringing traditions forward

until the points meet

today

on the surface plane;

 

I will write in ropes,

hash out and untangle,

knit our path

into a cabled scarf

until I figure 

this out;

a centuries-old

riddle for our people:

the boundary.

Where do we end?

Where do we begin?

Does any people ever really know?

 

And as I do

my words so blue

drip down into the

white wood of the threshing floor

pooling at foreign uncovered feet

the place where difference and recognition meet

and great kingdoms are conceived.

 

they stain 

once blonde grain

no oriental carpet thrown over

can hide the truth:

we are, as ever,

mixed, colored, integrated, amalgamated;

 

the ones who come after will say

it was always this way

and wonder what the fuss of those

elders was all about?

 

I, in my rocking chair,

plan to smile and nod

on that beautiful day

knitting loop after loop

into a brilliant pattern.

 

This poem is inspired by the ancestry of King David, described in the Book of Ruth 3:7-12 and by all those who believe that difference doesn't need to result in subordination.