Jerusalem: Fragments

Some definitions that may help meaning:

Kippah; An informal name for a yarmulke, the small rounded headwear worn by males in Jewish ceremonies

Uzzah;  Uzzah was a 1010 BC Israelite who, among many more, entered into Jerusalem with King David.

Zion; In many cases, this can mean the Jewish people or the Israeli state as whole.  In this case, I use it as a nickname for Jerusalem.

Lime; Limestone; a chalky stone containing calcium; this stone is commonly used in buildings in Jerusalem; the Wailing Wall is an example (see also 'alabaster' in Part I).

Some descriptions explained:

"sons of the commandments” (Part III) The 'bar' in Bar Mitzvah literally means 'son'.  'Mitzvah' means law or commandment.  The main thrust is that a boy becomes a man and is responsible for his actions and behaviour under the law.

"gendered partition" (Part III) In many Orthodox Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, the women can be commonly separated (partitioned) by a makeshift wall, males on one side and females on the other.  In large part, the men are on the side with the more favourable view. 

"upon the shrine" (Part III)  In this context, I mean the Ark of the Covenant.  This was a large chest that is believed to have held the tablets of the Ten Commandments inside. In other chapters of the Bible, it says it housed the scrolls of the Torah.

"Hora's circling steps" (Part IV) The "Hora" is the name of a Jewish dance often witnessed at a Bar Mitzvah.  The'Hora' is usually exemplified by an energetic group dancing in a circle.

"Tree had lit on fire" (Part V)  This is a humorous (I hope) allusion to the biblical story of the Burning Bush.

Quick note:  This was also a true story. We actually heard firetrucks but all the commotion was beyond our view of vision.  We were told quite earnestly that a tree was on fire.  This amused me greatly.  When I heard of no rational explanation for this fire, I was amused all the more (and, of course, I 'catalogued' it in hopes it could be part of a poem). 

Jerusalem: Fragments 

I. First Night

The moon sits bright in an eastern sky.

The moon is in the sky. Projecting

Cold, clear beams, she eyes in objective

Nowhere stares of glimmered chance

To spy upon what beauty may be

Found. Here upon contoured corpse of land,

Her piercing glare of crystal white does

Fall upon each and all bejeweled

Rocks and stones that lay upon the bosom

Of breasted earth glowing everyone

A pearl. And upon the loam rise those

Stones hewn, brick to brick, white on white,

Alabaster necks of splendor that stem

From embroidered body of antique earth.

No nightly veil can hide the modest

Means. The sister satellite in the

Sky does amplify the gems that sit

On sacred flesh and those calcite necks

Above, the works of praising man. Here

Lies aged allure in palling light; bones

And stones to be admired or feared;

Ghosted; ornamented; beauty still.

II. Bar Mitzvah for Two

Twins stand on the brink what with a double

Shuffle of a holy book. Sweeping from

Right to left, they sway destined to be the sons

Of the commandments and the heirs of a

Long hauled history soon to claim them men.

They mumble in dusty tones the old voices.

Twin-round kippah’s, cocked and white on sandy

Heads, two of an age, shift and move like the

Eyeballs of a suspicious face. My red face,

Marked by the sun, or the burning notion

I could bump heads with my reading neighbour

Like magnetic worlds in a collision,

Peers down. Here I stand amongst the rest with

Books. I stand with solemn men in a

Hotel basement observing the reading

Rites of tradition twice and two holy

Boys. The pages peer up from my hand,

Lifeless, dull, aged in colour, like a dead

Canary, a hue like the yellowing teeth

Of old piano keys. But I burn bright

As I watch our opposites, those female

Creatures as bejeweled as the earth, decked

On top, all, hiding scalps from God, spill past

The gendered partition like lovely lemmings

To get a closer glimpse. They jockey for

A look at the boys made men without a

Hint of doubt of their lovely leap of faith.

And now my face does blush with the acceptance

Of the thought that fusty laws speak partitions

To divide and demarcate our learnt

Acquiescence with the deeper need to

Spill with pride. Intuition seeps through.

And so do the words in the book. They seem

As curled and aged like the well-worn page.

But I must seem as diligent as the rest.

I look down again and read the rules.

The old tome almost slips from my hands as

My mind wanders toward thoughts of hummus

And olives and talks with lovely ladies

Who feel no fear yet know to hide their heads.

III. The Party

Reverie and joy among the smiling

Faces and dancing for tradition is

What makes this celebration of festive 

Rite as sacrosanct as old city light.

The light of Zion shown through the villa

Windows. Each arch top aperture did frown

In stuccoed scowls and let through white heat

That fueled the flame of swirl and swoon of Hora's

Circling steps. Among the noise the children

Conspicuously congregated in

A corner.  Both secrets and curiosity

Reigned among the young.  In the middle of

Their muffled noise, a twin did bleed his new

Mannish blood, the result of a brotherly

Prank gone wrong. I implored upon him justice

Should be met and such sibling travesty

Must be shown. But the boy now man, as if

Sagely seeing more of love than fear, did

Wipe his adolescent fluid and told me,

No. And the blood of siblings does flow on.

And age old stories can be told anew.

Commotion was upended by commotion.

A new curiosity came from the

Window where the screech of a Jerusalem

Fire truck whirled and wheeled from the street

Below.  The children, like a tight pack of

Bees that cannot lose their squeeze, sped there.

The new commotion, they were most proud to 

Relay, was that a tree had lit on fire,

Ablaze, in the bright light of day.  Without an

Answerable cause, this, to me, spoke of

Unclear mystery's like those twin tales

We call love and fear. And the sign for a

Wonder did remind once more that those

Same age old stories can be told anew.

Another sight might help me mull my thoughts.

I leave these festive faces who dance in 

Rings so my mind might mingle with city air.

IV. Uzzah’s Mistake

A natural inclination can kill.

The new king entered into the sparkling

City, a natural leader to lead

A joyous procession of minstrels and

Cymbals and concubines and one oxen

Driven cart. Loin-clothed and lean he danced like

The possessed caring not a whit for the

Shame that poured from windows. He would be king.

He would be the well-spring that led to what

Would be believed the waters that immersed

A final one. All in this new city.

Within this carnival of cymbalic

Crash and lyre strum did poor Uzzah walk.

He walked apace with those torpid beasts of

Burden, the yoked souls set free only by

The merciful slake of their animal ignorance.

What animal is not ignorant? But

Awareness of  ignorance seems the sin.

So the oxen did pull the cart in an

Intuitive step like organic machines

In zen-like rote. They pulled the cart that housed

The sacred text meant for no earthly eyes

Or hands but to be placed in the bosom

Safety of the welcoming sacred town.

Yet in a sudden one ox did falter

And slide upon the dusty city floor.

Could it have been one jewel strewn stone

Upon his path that caused the shrine to shake

And move upon the wheels?  Therefore, Uzzah,

A man whose intuitive nature took

Hold like a double swell of both love and

Fear, laid his hands upon the shrine

So as to steady God's word so that it

Might not fall to grace where rocks and stones are

Laid. And for his deed did God strike him dead.

The impulsive step borne of human care

Left him lying there among the quarry.

And much does God want of both love and fear.

A natural inclination can kill.

V. On the Balcony

Among the flowerpots and plastic

Cups I find an empty length of ledge

To rest some sun-scorched arms. I hear still

The din from festive faces that maze

Around stuccoed hotel halls that echo

Like cloudy calls of far off friends unfound

In a dream. Patioed and bent on

High I ponder from my heightened place

The things I want to love and those I

Need to hide. Ambivalent are those

Angels that shine as bright as the noon

Day sky for they never need be seen.

This holy place of sun-scaped earth does

Not belong to me. She has had in time

So many a lover and those who claim

The hold of heathen hands. I stand here

Balconied above with heated heart and arms,

A sun-burned player of that tragic play

To ask, “Wherefore art thou, Jerusalem?”

For now, I return to those found faces,

Those Semitic smiles that pierce my festive

Mask and ask with eyes to partake in hummus,

Olives, those drinks in plastic cups,

And the felt coolness of sliced cucumbers

That soothe and smooths the heady pulse of this

Heated heart and the pain of sun-scorched arms.

VI. Last Night

 Despite night's inky cloak, the moon helped spy

The line of olive trees all jutting at an angle,

Outwardly, like evening samaritan's

Umbrella's offered with inviting

Smiles to roof wet heads. On the hill above

Sat the old town not so ancient as the moon

But near as ghostly white and seeming as

Close. On Zion's hill stands the kings wall still

In perpetual grin in old and yellow

Lime. And beyond the ancient town, older

Than tales borne from the earth, beam tiny

Lights that tell no stories nor deign no laws.

While on holy ground bejeweled rocks and

Stones shine soft and fainting light upon the

Transcendent terrain marking each and all 

An armament, or else a grave. And above

It all, above all that man has carved, spreads

A vast and sleepy sky, in a convex

Arc like an omniscient eye, that feigns a

Constant watch but looks the other way.