Maven in Blue Jeans: A Festschrift in Honor of Zev Garber

Writing

388 Writing (for Zev Garber) William (Zev) Wallis Prelude Obsessed with what no longer seems possible, Lost in the skein of words that no longer holds Promise of flight from the history of fire That no longer cleanses but scalds and scars, I descend from cirrus dreams to a small room Where remnants of star-birth scald the mind, Where golden letters born of first fire Still shimmer bright an instant at the core, Revealing forms, molten truth in realms Hidden deep in glacial Siberian wastes, Roman ghettoes, Ukranian shtetls, Endless, long, one-way trains crossing That great, broad even emptiness Where time’s horizon contracts from life promised To the pale train of time stopped at the edge Of stony, shifting criteria where frozen waves Mock numb passengers in thin coats, Torn unprepared from some little place To the south or west, some place where pages Are not bound with crushing force in mind. Go ahead, add one more page to the bright flames, Run blindly through streets of red, brown shirts, boots, Cobblestones littered with smashed windows, Broken spines, torn bindings, letters cried out Burning in the air, books piled like trash, burning – Burning like thought, like mind, like flesh. Thus we read those times, the impossible times Of the disappeared, the unreckoned, the lost. Listen, I will sing you a story of fire risen from roses, Not Promethean enlightenment, not inspiration, Writing 389 But simple fire of the flesh – Shoah – Of old books longing for rebirth – Shoah – Longing for what seems now impossible: Love of divine form in human kind. Shoah, shoah, shoah, shoah, shoah. I want to write about survival on earth In words too plain for poetry, in words Simple enough for all the children on earth To read before they are blinded with hate, Stumble blind into violence, and are lost forever. Can the soul still long for what seems unlikely, Perhaps impossible: order in the universe of men, Acceptance of the paradox of their oneness. In this moment inscribed, dear friend, Let us pause by the hidden tracks and consider The attributes of man, sapphires of mind To guide us from terror to peace. Come, gilded box, yield jewels of worth From the ashes of a thousand books In your fragrant cedar depths; Come, sanguine fire, sing out forms That divine the hidden heart with searching flame, Here is the diadem of light, The inner text of necessary longing, The Sefirot, the mystical text— The marks honoring the snowy page With the shadows of the soul’s truth. 1. Keter (Crown) The invisible crown of knowing love Sits easy on godhead seen from above. Israel temple of my mind, you are safe. Your ancient walls will gather my children inside, Your storms cloud my eyes on the mountain tops of time. My hands may lose their need to touch the stones Buried in the wall of walls, but not the ageless Golden arms I dreamed would open in Jerusalem For my children and their children’s children. Israel home of my soul, reside in me Now, never leave this fragile veil of flesh. I will find you amidst the stony denial of my love— Hate’s scream, searing blast, flames in the tomb. I do not think I will soar over your stone walls, But distant seek the pure smoke of your past Written down in feathering prayer to last. 2. Hokmah (Wisdom) Great intellects draw from life force well spent, But considered through veils, scorched and rent. 390 WILLIAM (ZEV) WALLIS My family has taught me to love, to finally Move from passion to compassion, and return. Still, I afflict them with my pain, the unresolved Nightmares of a blind child crying in the night. I howl at them, as well as at the man in the mirror, I project my ambition and tastes on them, Desire more for them than they need. But even so, their patience with me is sweet As honeyed pages, their pleasant buzz At my homecoming draws me safe to them. They humor me and draw me out of moods, They fill the evening with story and song, And my sleepless nights with visions of rebirth. Seasons of growth fill life with dancing mirth, Charge dreams with sharing and self-worth. They help me discover my real work: They can’t know and love what I do not reveal. Sometimes I invent difficulties; I used...