Praha 44, or Poem, Revised

The Grass is Always Green in Israel
Draft 3

This morning on my walk to school, I stopped to inspect a soft yellow
blur that brushed my ankle.
On the side of the three-lane highway,
a dandelion was peeking through the chain link,
like a daisy resting in a gun barrel, and I smiled.

I grinned because the sun was out for the third
day in a row, and although the noise from the traffic
drowned out the birds, I swore I could almost hear them
singing, and I put my lips together to join them in a whistle
because as far as I’ve heard,
birds never sing with words.
They’re an endless niggun,
a wordless melody to greet the rising sun.

And I may be a crazy kind of Jew,
but I thank G-d for bird nigguns
because if birds could sing words
they’d eventually offend someone,
enough to grab a shotgun,
to try and bring down every singing bird, every laughing, mocking bird
that so offended him, and normally I’d think
that’s irrational, and cruel,

but when I read your letter,
with its images of Israel painted sweeter and simpler than bird songs,
I started looking around for a shotgun.
But if I were to silence you for offending me,
I’d have to take a four-hour plane ride first,
and as that plane was landing, I’d see
the white beaches of Tel Aviv, and listen to the plane burst out in Hatikvah,
and then I’d have to put my gun down.

You see, Israel is my long-distance lover
who’s been cheating on my politics for six or seven years,
but the walk up the Carmel and the sounds of the shuk are like the flowers
and teddy bears that are almost enough
to make me forgive this country I love with so much fierceness
that its betrayals feel like the end of a rifle jabbed against my heart.

And Sara, you said the grass is always green
in Israel, that people are always proud in Israel,
heads high, backs straight, people fighting to survive
instead of going meekly to the slaughter.
But green grass in a desert
is a mirage that’s fortified by pesticides, and underneath
is the curve of the bent back
of a mother whose daughter died as collateral damage
in a battle they won’t ever call war.

And Sara, if you want
to tell me about the history of our pride, don’t forget to include
Manny Ringelblum, who hid our people’s history in milk cans
for scholars to remember. Don’t forget the Warsaw ghetto warriors,
who faced their deaths with Yiddish fight songs on their lips
in a riot that’s remembered as a battle. Don’t forget
the thousands of our generation who are discovering their Judaism
locked away inside them like persistent fireflies in a jar
as their grandparents bequeath them the long-held secret in their wills. Remember them,

along with the straight backs and strong faces
and the lives of Socialist farmers who thought
they could plant freedom in the sand, but no prophet could’ve seen
that their seeds would grow into spiraling weeds,
thorny and defensive, and impossibly snarled. Remember those roots, but

don't mistake your history
for your memories, and don't forget
that freedom isn’t real unless it applies to everyone, and don't forget
to pause and notice those who are still enslaved, and remmber
that it’s not worth it to have green grass always,
if it means you need to keep dumping pesticides, because Sara,
if I’ve learned one thing living near a busy highway
it’s how to find joy in the dandelions.