New Jersey 3, or Poem Draft 4

The Importance of Dialogue
(Draft 4)

Dear Sara,

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 peeked through the chain link,
like a daisy stuck in the end of a gun, and I smiled.

I grinned because the sun was out for the third
day in a row, and even though 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 for as long 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 use words
they’d inevitably 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 see
that as irrational, and cruel,
but when I read your letter,
with its images of Israel painted sweeter and simpler than bird songs,
I started feeling for the trigger.

But silencing you would involve more than that moment-
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
offensively off-key singing,
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 Arabic ramble of the shuk are like flowers
and teddy bears. And they’re 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 Mizrachim,
who celebrate our ancient victories with laughter
while our assimilation corrodes their culture like salt water.
Don’t forget the eastern bloc Communists who hated us for being leaders

in the revolution that freed Poland. Don’t forget
the thousands of our generation discovering their Judaism,
burning 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 your roots, but

don't mistake your history
for your memories, and don't forget
that freedom isn’t real until everyone can taste it; don’t forget
those who are still enslaved, and remember
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.