Neve Shalom, September 2014

Under an olive tree in Neve Shalom it's impossibleto write "olive tree" without murdering some dove it's impossible to write"Neve Shalom" without entering into a war.It's impossible to say "I saw a prickly pear bush this morningon the way to meditation" without quarreling with the thornsthat words send beyond their stone walls, ours,whose olive tree is this and why is each leaf so significant, stuck in my mouthlike the bitter word of the war that I didn't start and I can't end.The war in my head rages also under the olive tree and the chirping birdsand the falling olives of September,a dark-green plastic chair, the grass, palm trees, the hills before me,the muffled sound of cars, the sparrow pausing near my feet,awe at the harmonies of shade over the lawn breathing around mein a tolerant rhythm as usual, the law of entwined trees,a hush like a distillation of Torah law.Friends sit sheltered by sheets of paper, pens buzz with thought,labor concealed in silence, determined that the world continue to turn on its axis.

I want to say more now about beauty:beauty is the six letters I'm writing now.Here a woman sits under the vine of her wordsand under the fig tree of this very moment, at the momentthat a ripe date severs from a palm tree and strikes the ground.