Yizkor

Castrato

Tzoayk haEgel. Omer ikar,
Leheeyot egel, mi lecha amar?
Lamah ayn lecha kenafayim,
Ktzipur dror nehedar

These long-ribbed notes uplifted beneath the blade
sing no children from the land, but stone and stump,
each sprig of bile, the sniffling of the spade
ring with every glottal pulse to an all but empty sky.

The spiraling sockets of the earth
where olive trees once stood
brim the roar of lebensraum,
of soil and of blood.

Go and feed the whirlwind —
come gild the wound a god —
Spread the one-day-petals scatter
round the iron rod.

Lancet-lore, O Lancet-lore,
a swallow song so fine
peoples deep the hatred,
it peels the skin of light.

Chink the wall with watchwords
and chosen alibis.|
Calf-mewls are the music,
emptied homes your sky.

---

Egress

You, dark tributary of the lower skies,
from the combs behind our eyes,
bearing us on to the mother of our gentler curves.

Listing cradle, sifting  tumbril
and us singing and singing
the River Jordan is deep and wide.

Ancestor. Horned under the trees,
scrape the bark clear to candleblack.
to sons bound by fathers,
a G-d in the thicket
pretending to Animal,
Partisan.You
are a well at world's end,
twelve rough stones ringed round
the arterial wall, parting the days, forward and back

where we crossed over the commandments,
where the waters closed up before us,
where we continued together, alone.

And remembered Gilgal no more.