New Jersey 39, or Final draft

the coming

"When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons." Golda Meir (Press conference after the Six-Day War, 1967)

1.
Dear Golda,

Israel is at war again. This is news?
By now, public opinions are sunk deeper than ink into newspaper.
I barely visit mine, the way I can look at scars
without thinking about the injuries that caused them.

When peace comes, Golda, what will you look for?
Will it look like piles of dirt-streaked skin and crossed bones?
Tank tracks leading to anthills of charred houses?
We talk about peace like a god that refuses to intervene.

2.
Dear Israel,
When my friends can’t speak of your deeds,
they speak of your beauty.
Cobalt sea gracing
your neckline like melting jewels,
Jerusalem turning gold in the sunset like a wedding band,
blood-burst flowers blooming along the Carmel in the spring,
you wear sandstorms like a veil.
In every war, there must be a princess at stake.

3.
Dear Golda,
in this world of bombs and newspaper,
there are still olives
and clementines.
Trees do not stop feeding the hungry in times of war.
When peace comes, will you have enough left to offer it a meal?

4.
Dear Family,
You haven’t said the word Palestine since they voted to call it Israel.
If Palestine disappeared in ’48, how dare you call them Palestinians?
Is there enough space between your mottled cheeks and flustered tongues
to build a shelter? Plant a flag?

Where have you hidden
the forty years we spent in a desert,
the shouts of “Kikes” and “Filthy Jew”
on the streets of Bucharest and Bratislava?
Are they hidden behind the blue-and-white shield?

5.
Dear Palestine,
I can no more sing your anthem
than swallow the Dead Sea
or balance a rocket on my shoulder.

And there are no olive branches left;
the doves vanished after the second rocket.

Here.
Take my right hand.
If it is not enough,
Take my mouth,
take my eyes,
take whatever you need, but leave
at least one breast, one arm,
one vacant cliff.
Call them Salaam.

When peace comes,
it will need a place to grieve.

6.
Peace, when you come, introduce yourself like this:
Ya Allah, matha fa'alna?
Adonai, ma asinu?
My G-d...what have we done?


(thanks to Geoff Jason Kagan Trenchard for his editing help)