The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems, 1979–2011

The Book of Life

89 The Book of Life —for Sheila Solomon Come now, let us reason together. —>Isaiah 1:18 I Everything very hardy. Irises one surprise after another—the florist Gave me the bulbs cheap, he didn’t know their colors, Big lavender with rustly Victorian edges, Pansies, then pinks, gallardias, yellow with maroon edges and Maroon centers, all perennials. Then marigolds orange and gold, and alyssum. Then I transplanted the beach-rose, one of a pair I bought for Cynthia, so healthy it was breaking the pot A month or so before she died— A sweltering Yom Kippur morn. The Book Lies open on God’s knee, God’s ear Is funneling repentances, but we Are not in synagogue. Instead we stroll Through mud around the pool you have bulldozed In the bright wilderness of your back yard Halfway along the digit of Long Island. Gripping a trowel, you promise me you will swim Daily. You will draw. You will take long Walks by the bay. This is the year your mother finally Went blind, stamping and screaming I can see Perfectly well and This is your fault While you wept and telephoned nurses and lawyers. It is the year your favorite uncle died, He who taught you your first Jewish jokes And called America hopeless, politicians 90 In bed with profiteers—where he came from, if you saw a Jew Eating a chicken, you knew one of them was sick. The year your daughter left for Oregon To escape you, while you cramp over with dread At crowded arteries that could Any time worsen—not a good year— Now we are arm in arm, I stroke your hand, Recalling an old photo of our daughters, Three slippery toddlers in a bathtub. Nina looks at the camera with the curious Eyes of a faun, Rebecca smirks, Eve paddles In the vicinity of her cosy belly —If we could reach into that picture, Splash them teasingly, touch their skin— You say: I go into my studio And can’t recognize it. What is this place, what did I mean to do, Will I ever work again. II We know the myth of the artist dying young, Consumptive, crazy, The lyric poet melting back Like a jack-in-the-pulpit in April woods, Created by one rainshower, Destroyed by the beat of the next, Crying My name was writ in water. We know too the myth of our self-destructiveness, The slide into a needle, the cave of fur, The singer shattered like his smashed guitar. We were raised on it. These stories must comfort someone. Yet other artists continue lives of disciplined labor, 91 Invent strategies to defy the failing eyes, The weakening arm, Work larger, simpler, more enraged, or more serene. Writers sometimes grunt into their eighties Not necessarily growing witless. Certain women survive Their erotic petals and pollen, grasp dirt, bite stone Muttering I can’t go on, I’ll go on —No knowing which script applies to us. That it was we who fed the children language, That the juice and joy of their growth was ours, That when they suffered it was we who staggered, Baffled by useless unglamorous grief, That our yearning for them would be ineradicable, That we would drone around their whiffs of nectar Even when they scorned us—Jewish mothers— Everyone knows this familiar plot, but not The secret premise. Not how it comes out. III To whom shall we pray O God of life Inscribe us in the Book of Life? The leaves grow amber, golden, brass, We walk along the bay, sit on the dock, Watch ripples spread where a mallard lifts, My pockets heavy as always With clicking beach stones. To be a Jew meant food, A style of irony, a taste for kindness. Violin tremolos. We used to think so. We, the never-included, who believed God meant the promise, They shall not hurt nor destroy 92 In all my holy mountain. Today women who gather to pray aloud By the warm stones of the Western Wall In the holy city of Jerusalem Have chairs flung at them, curses spit. They are called whores by some who call themselves Chosen. People of the Book. A prime Minister ascends to microphones Through the sharp wailing of the intifada To declaim of those whose lives are in his power They are as grasshoppers to us If they dare defy us...