INTRODUCTION
MOSHE BENARROCH
The Poetry of Rochelle Mass
CONTENTS
THE POEMS OF ROCHELLE MASS
I
Looking for the Source
February: Kitsilano Beach
Winter
Between the shutter slats
Waiting for a message
Summer is in the making
Home is where you go
When things happen
Timing
Jerusalem in August
The New Year
Winter-trapped
A reminder
II
2 nights and a day
Like a compass bound for north
What one man needs
Send my love to Steven
The riot has begun
I know a man
What people say
Where's my Home
The 4th of July
Dignity
Like a Hollyhock
High Noon
Rising to the Surface
You ask
III
This month
East
Holding the earth
Strawberries from Gaza
A Place in Africa
On the train
Yom Kippur: England
IV
Vinegar and wet paper bag
Suddenly I was 16
A Printer to the King
Stored Time
Controlling Memories
Wiping away the signs
A Trade
A trench for five
Paying respects
Into a war
Fresh Asparagus
Birthing
POST SCRIPTUM
Rochellle Mass
Publishing acknowledgements
MOSHE BENARROCH
The Poetry of Rochelle Mass
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rochelle Mass' poetry lives in a constant struggle between opposites.
A ping pong of yin and yang, then and now, there and here, childhood
and adulthood, man and woman. Born in Canada she arrived to Israel
in 1973, and has lived, since then, in the Jezreal Valley. She lives
in the part of Israel that is most populated by Israeli Arabs (or
Palestinians with Israeli citizenship). Many of her poems describe the
complicated relationships between Jews and Arabs, from a human point
of view. The lack of any political poems or statements leaves the reader
in a world where things said and lived are as important as the things
not said. This is very far from the TV news, but as Ezra Pound would
say, ' this is the real news', ever since the beginning of Zionism.
Another part of her poetry is childhood, Mass seeks some kind of
solace in her father and family, but finally she doesn't find it there,
she doesn't find it anywhere. Her poetry just raises more and more
questions. In the short poem "Timing" she writes: "My father/ tuned
watches/ fixed broken staffs/ and oiled springs/ replaced cracked dials/
reset wandering hands// I/ run lost/ and late."
The image of the father working on the precision of watches is a dear
image to Mass, and appears in many of her poems. But she can't cope
with her father's precision and she runs lost and late. In her verse
she does it, in her poems she is a master of free verse, her breaking
of lines and her words are always precise and work like a very fine
swiss watch.
In "Where's my home" a poem published in this issue and part of her
chapbook by the same title, she describes a man, who is ill, asking his
wife about the tallis and tefilim. He has lost most of his memory, and
doesn't even even know his own home. His wife explains this to him as
if he was an infant, and tells him that sometimes the other men come to
take him to the synagogue, when they need him for the minyan (a minimum
of ten people needed to have a complete service of prayers). He has
lost his memory and is at the end of his life, but socially and
religiously he is still part of the community. Finally he says : "I'm no
longer a man", but he still is.
Between these two conditions of being and not being lives Mass'
poetry; this tension creates a richness rarely found in our stereotyped
lives.
THE POEMS OF ROCHELLE MASS
I
Looking for the Source
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time-stops, she called what she did.
This was doing something important, stopping time. Sheets
floated in acids, birthing figures into existence. It's the wet pictures
she remembers, the movement as it roams from below
as it convolutes
evolves.
He blows nervousness into her shoulder when he lifts her dress.
The other women fade into other time, other rooms. Air is heavy
as he comes toward her. She prepares for his weight, his shape
feels between water and sky. Remembers stones and flowers and
for just a second, the dream where she lost her legs.
Then he empties. She was his field of wild rice, tall corn
fat tomatoes. He pummeled her, told her who she was, but
sometimes he just takes from her. Sometimes she follows him
memorizes his hand, his eyes. She tries. It's a slow ride into her body.
She remembers planning her death. In water, deep in, never rising
no more sky. But he's taking her to better now. Don't cut me in half
she pleads. It's night. The cold stays round them till they push at it.
Cover themselves with each other. She is tired, moves back to her self
can only see what she didn't know about him, the way
he shook his hand, how his lip twisted. She waited
like a cat under his leg, like slippers.
There was a pattern here: she - fragments, phrases.
He - open doors, thrusting her ahead.
I went to a lady healer this morning, he tells her, to get peace.
Here, he says, placing his hand on his chest, too much pain, wild pain,
he says waving the flat hand back and forth.
The healer touched my neck, held my shoulder, steadying me.
She was pushing me into weeds, swamps, marshlands.
I shook like a weather vane, spun round myself
I left
ran out.
His coughing woke her, he was rolled over himself on the sofa
she walked round till her hands were damp, flashing, snapping
rolling the focus. Leaned over to the contours
of his cheek, arm, down to his ankle.
When she dropped the pages into the acid bath, the shadows blurred
then became exact. Finally, there he was, she had locked him in
closed a fence round his pain, simmered him down.
He looked like an iris felled by heat
a heavy boot or
an anxious dog. He lay still - the way he wanted the healer to make him,
like the iris when it was unaware of being otherwise.
Didn't look ambitious
almost looked discarded
left in a dusty place.
She refocused the camera, tried to think him out
get at his totality, moved over him again, frame after frame.
He would always be bigger than her, but with the lens she reduced,
minimized, so that he could fit her. When the images moved up
into the page his face was stained with a splash of light.
She hadn't seen it
would look for the source
every time she came back.
February: Kitsilano Beach
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sand isn't dusty yet, shells shine with winter, barnacles
shift light. The sea stays deep and thick. Doesn't reach the sky
like in summer. I raise my collar, stare to hear the waves
pound the beach - knead like bread, till I feel the land
under each smack. I watch a man pulled by three dogs.
They cluster, the man takes out a pipe, turns. The dogs
hold together, then suddenly spring toward the sea, swarm
at the edge.
The sea is hard and flat, then softens.
The man stands at the water's edge, impatient to tug them back
bends into his pipe.
The dogs scratch the logs, warning me, I hear.
I gather my jacket round my waist.
Once in February, years ago, I saw leafless chestnut trees
cover the hillside near Pietra Santa, drank Grappa. The clear stuff
burned the chill, settled into my chest. Now I stiffen, hold on
so nothing will collapse
care about dreams that crack.
Lavender and rosemary crawl up the mountain where I live.
The sun slides down my shoulder this morning; I am overdressed
for winds that sweep in from the desert. Even though
its barely April, summer's on the road. Tips of plants
show brittle that will, in a month or so, work down
to the root.
The sun will not pass from here.
Winter
~~~~~
The garden swells bloated and jellied.
Rains wheeze
freight new growth with greens
I've never seen before.
Winds shred
and slash.
Days hesitate to start, close fast.
Time is different then,
stores me like baggage
to be claimed.
My bones rattle in blues and blacks
I splinter.
I need you to mark the boundaries
so winter can't go
beyond its time.
Between the shutter slats
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The gap between night and day is frail, hardly there at all.
There are only a few clear moments when day
moves into night. Not really a matter of time -
the space is so transparent.
I read about a man who planned his death, then on a mountain road
where wild birds confirm space, he turned to living.
It's been a long time since I had dark plans when spaces overlapped
didn't leave me air nor light. I used to think I knew enough
but I'm shocked into knowing what I didn't know
the way cold blasts when a door opens - like that man
on the steep road.
Today the day warms as it rounds to noon. At the turn of warming
I think of how another man's hair rolled against his neck
began slowly like words leaving a pen. I felt pretty
wanted to stay.
There are mangoes now, avocados and pears. The rain
has started again, hits the top of the hedge, then slaps the window.
Smells of summer are cleared away
then night comes, scratching.
I think of radishes bulging red, know that bland men
do not brood nor baffle like the cold shuffling by my bed.
I measure myself,
match up pictures.
Want to save things, get lost in details. Stay away
from days that bring the same thing again
shake off memories
going the wrong way.
Night covers me with a tight lid. I fall between the shutter slats
plugged into a moving space where
everything is equal
but never the same.
Waiting for a message
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trees help you see slices of sky between
branches, point to things you could never
reach, help you watch the growing
happen, watch blossoms burst
then dry, see shade
twist to the pace of the sun,
birds tear at unwilling seeds.
Trees take the eye to where it is,
where it was, then
over to distant hills, far-away blue
of other places and
times, long ago.
A tree is a lens,
a viewfinder, a window.
I wait below for
a message of
what is to yet to come.
Summer is in the making
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Desert winds blew in thick and dry
from the deserts of Arabia, mixed ions
and emotions into a soup thick with confusion.
Dust covered every surface in my home
sepia on cups, tables, photographs. Then rains
came from the corner of the skies, slashed
at the grit. Summer is in the making.
A divided entry. It fades, then resolves again.
Today I walked up the hill to the clinic to
have the doctor tell me why pain rolls over
my shoulder. Just before the grocery store, before
I crossed the street, I fell, hands down.
My knee sizzled, jeans tore. My shoulder
hummed with new rhythm. When I came home
a fresh cup of coffee
spilt over the other leg.
Somehow it all comes together,
summer in the making and my body
asking for care. I move round the rim of it,
go from one tangle of flesh
to another. The pain opens and closes
seems calculated and cunning.
Shouldn't be ignored.
Worth defending.
My body seems pulling away
separating, looking past me.
While summer is in the making,
ions and emotions simmer.
Home is where you go
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clouds flat as English dinner plates hang in the slick sky.
Still wrapped in British wool, my boots are marked where snow
crept over the sole, where ice licked the pavement.
The light is blinding as I look at the Alps. The snow
looks necessary there, settled in buttermilk. The sky
starched and scalding. I turn away as coffee is served,
a small muffin, mint wafers also.
The man across the aisle laughs - ragged, rum-filled.
I push the window shade higher, yank the blanket
to my shoulders.
On the screen - a woman says:
I've never lived in a place that doesn't have wheels, now I want
a place with a patio, overlooking the sea - a table
with an umbrella, drink chocolate milk as the sun goes down.
Home is where you go when you fall she says.
No one can tell you how to get there.
The sky bleeds white, points to the shore, then steadies.
Tel Aviv is bathed in noon, shades of citrus; tops of trees
are where they should be. Cars twitch along.
The ground crunches.
Blue slips away to let the runway in.
Dry bushes mark highways on land
waiting for rain.
When things happen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sweat of summer has been wiped away,
winter has come to rescue, yet seems to assault.
Shirts have sleeves now, the bed was layered first
with a shawl, now the quilt.
I think of soup-making since the air has thinned,
lost the texture of honey. I fill these cooler days
as if I'm doing it for the first time.
Late afternoon the day falls before I turn on the lights.
I wonder how much of summer will stay through winter
as I move sandals aside, bring woolen things down.
I know I have to let the heat drop away like torn paper
scatter like coins.
The burn of summer makes a slow exit
as the cooler air sucks in. Greens in my garden return,
stretch after the first thick rain.
This morning I felt a gentle, clean wind from the Gilboa,
but soon it will smack my window.
I unfold a new sweater, put it over my shoulders
remember how I used to save clothes for a special time.
When I was eight I saved my winter coat,
didn't wear it till I was ten, then
couldn't button it.
Now I know that things happen
when they happen
like the pling-plank of popping corn.
Timing
~~~~~~
My father
tuned watches
fixed broken staffs
and oiled springs
replaced cracked dials
reset wandering hands
I
run lost
and late
Jerusalem in August
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I saw a Squill lily in my friend's garden.
It pushed out of the summer earth amongst
frayed weeds and twisted ferns
above zinnias and asters
that were brown and bent.
In Jerusalem the changing of the seasons
has been marked
even though the sun is still perched
high and stern
even though the New Year
is a full month away.
In our part of the valley
there is no sign of change.
The new year
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emptiness surprises me as I leave one room
move slowly in the new house to the upper floor
then rooms below. Disappointment hangs sticky
like honey for the New Year's cake.
The greening of this house was my hope.
I prepared defense for the Atonement Day
The neighbor built a Succah between pecan trees
covered with date palms and
taped his granddaughter's
drawings to the walls.
The Succah he says is for Jews
searching for the promised land.
Refugees he adds and survivors.
Jews disappear and reappear he says
adjusting the palms so they will filter stars.
Jews dream and yearn that's what Jews are.
He pats the roof.
Good time to be in a new house he says.
Three ferns are dropping leaves over the marble stairs.
The greening of this house in the New Year
was my hope.
I wonder: Can a person atone for ferns?
Winter-trapped
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When it is half dark
I stay nowhere - winter-trapped
my head's in a shawl.
All I can do is think of wood drifted
into shapes I used to bring home
put near shells on the sill,
try to find
what I'd never seen before.
Late today the light lowered and
faded
rounded into dull tones then
snapped shut.
The sun is losing heat, not like before
when it wiped the front of my house
leaving surfaces
flat and final.
A reminder
~~~~~~~~~~
A winter tide rubs markings from the sand. I watch
waves collapse, erase the past. Pools form into
hungry pockets, suck me in.
The sand is combed, smoothed. Completely
flattened now, the shore is strange.
I feel the loss, it splays my toes
threatening my ankles.
I'm bound to a place I dreamed for once,
want to ride on
but am bolted to the shore.
The outside pulls into dark when
the sun rolls down. I watch
the sky hit the sea. Night
loosens my feet.
I pull out one then the other. The air
is thin as I turn away.
This day, a reminder of something solid
in my world
made uncertain.
様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様
II
2 nights and a day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They walked into black corners of empty roads
long after the moon had turned up, till the sun
startled the sky. Then they twisted the lock,
pulled heavy curtains into one spread, rolled
into each other, using words not heard before.
The day moved by, slipped away. Their laughter
trembled, then silence scorched the room. The day
grew old, the skies rounded. The sun fell once again.
Another night stretched
ahead like an open window.
Like a compass bound for north
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some men walk with thick thighs
and flat feet, growl commands.
They take what they want
with yellowed hands,
stare down their prey
with dull eyes.
Some men walk with soft steps
meeting lovers on the way
offer warmth
like a compass bound for north.
I want a man who will stroke
my neck
shake doubts from
my lips
place jewels on
my eyes.
What one man needs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He had to be up with the sun feeding fish and threshing
wheat. When the sun curled over the hill he was forced
into days. To seed and trim, repair and build. The days
were long, too bright, too wide. He needed
narrow corridors with the moon as witness, when
shadows swing out, lurch. He honors spirits that know
the dark, when secrets soar. The sun disciplined him
the moon allowed him freedom. One harsh, the other
forgiving. A rock kicked out of place
he crawls out of the damp saucer of earth when
dusk falls. Wipes the day from his hands
walks into the muddy hours.
Send my love to Steven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was walking with a man to a coffee shop on a side street when a large
woman in a brown blouse stopped right in front of him adjusted her hat and
said: How are you, Mike? Haven't seen you in years and years and
as the man tried to remember her name she said Steven! How is he? Haven't
seen him in years. The man answered: you know him and the woman in the brown
blouse asked Still painting I guess? and the man answered
Yes, but not working any more than before. You know Steven. The woman took
off her hat and put her basket down and said Steven never liked to work,
didn't like children, calendars, nor watches. The man pointed toward the
street where
we were to turn left to the coffee shop, looked at his watch and said: Good
to see you, Eva. And she said I knew you'd remember my name and sort of
shouted as she put on her hat and picked up her basket Send my love, okay?
And the man said Sure, my wife will appreciate it. Eva turned `er back and
walked the other way. She's been married twice since Steven, four children,
three from the second, one with the third the man told me when suddenly we
heard her shout
I mean, my love to Steven, okay? The man waved in her direction. He never
loved her he said as we walked into the coffee shop everyone knew that,
yet after all these years she still sends him her love.
The riot has begun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It started days ago when desert winds left the garden brittle.
I watch leaves turn in like shells, twist
shadows over my yard as the heat presses on.
I wonder if people make their own weather.
In the winery, we lean toward the wine merchant
who says as if a secret:
this is wine for spring, it's that light.
I watch my glass fill with sun, feel more bound
to the earth, my throat turns slippery.
People need to incite their spirit, I think
looking at my friend, who reaches for a year-old Merlot
as the liquid slips past my tongue.
I watch him close eyes, test.
Somehow I know more about how the world is classified
by watching this man.
I want to trust the process, go slowly enough
to follow it.
Don't want to destroy the mystery
by explaining too much.
I wait for evening, for the street light to bring
the shadows in, make my coffee cup or reading chair
into something so large it stops being
what it was before. I move past the lines of my life
when that happens.
I know a man
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know a man who is
the earth of summer -
stubborn, dry and flat.
Not rich enough
to nourish
not fleshy enough
to wrap
round willing roots
not deep enough
to hold a tree
while it reaches
toward the sky.
What people say
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The papers said: Attempted murder of ex-wife, then suicide
Police officers said: Enough ammunition in his home to destroy the
neighborhood
The Kibbutz said: An artist-carpenter who torched the bed he made for his
bride
The ex-wife said: He was strict and controlling even in the good times
The Army Commander said: My tank gunner, he saved my life
The neighbors said: Erratic, kind
His friends said: Loyal, obsessed
Where's my home?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the man asks his wife
of 65 years
Is this where I live?
You've been away for some time
she answers softly
This is your home now
What is this place? he asks
This is where you live now
she touches his hand
Whose things are these?
Your tallis, tefillin
the kipah your father gave you
Why do I need them?
You are a man she says to her husband
a Jewish man
Sometimes they take me and those things to another place
to the shule to pray with other men she tells him
I should stay here he says lowering his head
When they need another man they come for you
she says
Why me? he asks, his hands shake
Because a man is a man
that's the Jewish way
she explains
I'm no longer a man
he says
to his wife
The 4th of July
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The mystery hour releases balloons
as light as drifting paper.
Cousins, aunts, fathers. The Fourth of July.
Summer is a mass of flickering stars striped
bright red-white-and-blue. Houses are vulnerable and warm,
life unburied. It's a straw-angel night.
Strange uncles, beloved grandfathers, mothers
breathe in fragile air, remember pear-shaped
memories of hands, lovely fingers.
Fireworks, the final moment, then wondrous sleep,
softly comes to the front lawn,
to the porch.
Dignity
~~~~~~~
A woman counts loaves of bread, places tomatoes
near the window. Fog, lifted by the wind,
shoulders the mountain. White sheets change
into sails, ring the branches of the lemon tree.
The land is hard
cracks like words.
The woman hears blossoms turning thin;
she bows to the dignity of change, breaks a loaf,
places two parts on the table.
A kiss of sustenance, she whispers.
There is nothing else to say.
Like a hollyhock forced to the ground
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A man in a striped shirt and a woman in
black shorts walked out of a cafe on a side street.
He ordered coffee thick with milk for both,
she filled a plate with cinnamon swirls and
triangles filled with cheese. They talked till the
coffee cooled then walked back into the sun.
He pulled a vine from between pebbles and broken
earth, handed it to her. Like hollyhocks forced
to the ground, he said. She smiled, replied: same color
as a blouse I once had. He whispered something by
her cheek as they walked. The flowers shriveled as
she watched him move into the traffic.
High noon
~~~~~~~~~
High noon beats
when you have loved me.
I am lowered
into the gorge
washed of all others.
I wait for the shy dawn
to make way
for the next high noon.
Rising to the surface
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My body
surfaces,
rises
loving has
skimmed
it all away.
You ask
~~~~~~~
You ask me how loving comes
leans, learns, spreads
till it binds
till both are crushed into a space that
lets in only hymns
and wild birds bringing berries.
You ask me how loving stays
circles till your skirts
scatter, your breasts
turn light,
your thighs seek
what you remember.
You ask me how I loved your father
but want to know how
you can love. I give you
nutmeg for your hair, ribbons
at your waist and
cream your lips.
Moving like a tango, loving
steps and strides
returns breathless.
様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様
III
This month
~~~~~~~~~~
Like trains re-tracked, governments have been replaced, left and
right changed places. Black-clothed missionaries serving God
threaten to tip the political scales to what they know to be His will.
Tomatoes redden on my window, beginning to blush. Heat lies low
forces me to water plants. I watch the leaves dance.
An Arab client invites me to his house in a village above Afula
tells me proudly that Arafat's adviser has been appointed to our
new government's Security Council. Someone startles me
with x-rays of torn knee tissues sent through electronic mail.
Deer sprint across our friend's yard at the foot of the Kumi Hills and
cotton is plumping along the highway replacing sunflowers that were
stalked in steady rows just a month ago. I wait for first rains
to wash down the olives, so we can take them to the press.
The New Year preoccupies me with more questions than answers.
Hope surfaces, convincing me
it must come from within, spread evenly
till it fits me as I want to be held. I taste possibilities
like medicine, catalogue what I can.
East
~~~~
The house faced east. The architect intended fresh light,
the first stream of morning. He placed long, wide windows
in the kitchen wall, was sure facing east would bring her
the spirit of Jerusalem, David's wisdom.
For her, east was keffiya'd* men at road blocks unloading
chairs and carpets with plump women who squatted,
staring at their feet till officials ordered them to move on -
green and white license plates eventually fading
in the dust.
She heard the muezzin from the village of Sandalah, just
over the hill, whining first prayers, watched Jenin, further east
over the green line, fill the horizon with new homes and
brooding intentions.
*head scarves, often red./black checkered fabric, sometimes white -
traditionally worn by Arab men.
Holding the earth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A sharp wind brings Golan voices down
into the valley where I can hear them. Sounds
like a rockslide, coarse scrub of grain and
the spiral of fissures. A frantic undertow.
The voices want no change, want
to keep their place in that massive reach of land.
In the early years, groups of children, my daughters too,
were trucked up there to clear rocks and boulders
smooth the surface into a welcoming place.
Pears and apples are picked now through fall and winter
brought south to local markets.
The trees are woods, throw shadows
dark as grief.
Crops and cattle are rooted there.
Soldiers have fallen keeping that place safe.
Golan voices spike questions
hurl them at anyone who'll listen.
People there seem to be lying low
like leaves coming down,
animals at bay
waiting for the chase, stirring trouble
holding the earth.
Strawberries from Gaza
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Empty boxes fall
picked up
returned
twist and
pull to the floor
again.
I pick one up
another drops
then another
I place each lost square
back into the jumbled cycle.
Who can join the boxes
place them together
in a firm carton
with loops at each side
so I can grip the weight?
Who can fill it with potatoes
parsley
or strawberries from
Gaza?
A place in Africa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was the sort of night that freezes strawberries.
Things often come as invasions, I thought, upheavals
like this - like losing a whole field. Yet, the crop
when it's there, is enjoyed as a fact, as evident.
The loss is grieved, I think, more than the act celebrated.
Real invasion is, I know, more than a field of strawberries,
more like my friend Layah struggling again
with cancer clumps
now moved from her lung to her brain.
I tell Layah about the strawberries.
There's what to learn from nature, from the land, from
animals, says Layah,
I just read, I tell her, that in some places
foxes meet in circles, yelp in measured tones.
There's a message there, she says.
She pulls up her scarf to show me a
black woolen band stretched round her ears.
So poorly heated here.
We locals believe the heat of summer burns all year long.
Sometimes the day never warms things up.
You look well today, I tell her. I'm scared.
It's crazy to tell her that
but I'm hopeful - so I lie,
she deserves better.
She gets up slowly, stumbles.
See? I can't move like I want, but still, I'd like
to take another trip before.
I've heard there's a place in Africa
where the horizon curls up.
I'd like to see that.
On the train
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I take my place across from a sleeping man with
a huge belly. As the train pulls out of Benyamina
his knees press against mine. He spits, and rattles
like rocks shuffled against the tracks.
The snores burst then stumble. He rearranges
his shoulders, pulls at his shirt.
After Kfar Yehoshua, a red-headed soldier places
a tefillin box on his forehead.
Soldier girls sleep in every row.
At Hadera I give me seat to a man with crutches,
I stand in the aisle, my case between my ankles
legs supporting the project of the day.
A pale woman gets on at Netanya, unfolds a map
on the train table, bends over, concentrates
looks for something others know.
The soldier by the window takes off his beret, twists
the black ribbon, motions to another.
Bronze wings over his shirt pocket tilt
He speaks about maneuvers and dates, his hand slips down
to his crotch as the other soldier refers to time and location.
Across the aisle a man folds his jacket into a pillow, packs
re-packs it, puts his head down. The girl beside me talks to a girl
beside him, says she has decided not to return to university
until the explosions end.
You're not going to live anymore? She is asked
Live, she answers, but not study.
After the University stop, I find an empty seat, hold up the book
on 'Fathers' I'm reading to block the MacDonald's dinner
the fat man has placed on the table.
The smell of cold french fries rises as he squeezes
mayo and ketchup into clumps, drags the orange drink
through the straw and bites into the double burger.
Wrappings cover the table, onion rings leave stains.
I raise my book higher.
As Tel Aviv Central is announced, he rumbles
low as wind, wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
Leans forward then fills the aisle, moves towards the exit.
Tel Aviv blares harsh and rude.
The fat man has prepared me.
Yom Kippur, England
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The top news that day was 'Kevin Keegan, resigns'.
Mom, says my daughter, he's the football coach.
England lost to Germany 1-0. Strategy wasn't good.
Sounds like she understands the situation
like she cares.
That news stayed at the top all week
even though Milosevic is out, and a new democratic regime
has come to Yugoslavia,
even though Ariel Sharon walked on the Temple Mount.
Narrow mention was given to Israeli front-line reservists
ordered to get their things ready
leave their phones open
their radios on.
The Chief Rabbi, small type declared, gave permission
for all security personnel to ignore
the 25 hour Yom Kippur fast.
And three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped in Lebanon,
marking Yom Kippur 2000.
A courier service truck passes us advertising:
It's not a promise if its not delivered.
I think of Arafat promising in Washington
then in Paris,
then in Sharm-a-Sheikh,
then Washington again.
At lunch the waitress, says, a Baptist, I am.
After asking where I'm from, adds firmly:
The Lord will never take Israel away -
written in the Bible, it is.
That's a real promise, I think.
様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様様
IV
Vinegar and wet paper bag
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They spill white vinegar over the fries at the beach,
it falls through the spaces, settles at the bottom. The salt
stays on top like the fluff of
first snow. I had just turned eight. I got a nickel for
chips every Saturday, then I'd sit on a log, facing the
sea, vinegar all over my arm, sometimes way
past the elbow. I liked how it kept the smell of chips
and brown bag with me as long as I wanted, even when
I went to the edge of the water
looking for shells. Didn't care if they were cracked just
had to be real different. Flat, dark or almost completely
closed. I liked the way the vinegar smell
got all over my shells, even inside, stayed there till I took
them home and put them on the shelf near my bed. I'd smell
vinegar and wet paper bag for most of the week.
Suddenly I was 16
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was September in Eilat at Pini's ice cream place. Three kids
sat round a stone table that stood on a thick cement leg, two boys
and a girl had finished thick cones and drinks.
When the dark haired boy laid his coke bottle on its circular side
so it looked like a woman in bed, spun it, catching it each time
so it stopped facing the girl who grabbed her mouth
with one hand
and her shirt in a bunch with the other
each time he started the spinning
and each time he stopped it after a few mad cycles
so it pointed at her.
The bottle dervished at the boy's twist and the girl blinked
and grabbed her mouth and shirt at least a dozen times.
The second boy moaned as the spinner racked up his points.
I ate my vanilla ice cream with a spoon from a plastic cup and
finished a bottle of mineral water watching the spinner
prove his claim on the stunned girl. Suddenly
he stopped the flaying bottle, grabbed it by the neck
and smashed it on the table - covering the girl's chest
with shards that bristled with the lights
from Pini's counter.
I sat at a table many years earlier when my father
came raging up the steps, shoved the door so it slammed
against the kitchen counter, linking his rage
to a day
another night
and years passed.
I sat head down hiding from the arguments he fired
loaded and re-loaded
at my Mother.
As suddenly as that boy had slammed the bottle down on Pini's table
my father grabbed the Nescafe jar and slammed it down
in front of where I sat head down and scared. I didn't see his hand
grab the bottle's waist but I felt the spray of shards over my head
and the coffee grinds stifle the air.
The coffee and glass swung round me.
I sat as muted as the girl, when the boy said to Pini
this bottle's cracked
and my father ordered clean up the mess
I was 16 just like that girl at Pini's ice cream place in Eilat.
That September, suddenly I was 16.
Printer to the King
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was only one press at the printing shop I visited
last week but pages were pulled and smoothed through
rollers, ink flowed where text would be, levers rose
then fell. The smell of ink rises from the belly of the press
same as at my Uncle Harold's years ago. He was printer
to the King, then the Queen, published laws and legislation
for the government of Canada. When I was a child I loved
the sound, the speed, how the letters turned into sentences.
Uncle Harold would have the typeset man cut out my name -
one silver letter after the other - give me piles of paper in any
color, whatever size I wanted. He'd tell the man in the back to
glue the colors into a pad. Whatever I wanted. Once he told me
how it all began, when he was 8 someone brought him a
printing set with rubber letters, an ink pad, and white paper.
I lifted the black letters he said, turned each one onto the pad,
spellt out my name. His company became one of the largest
in Canada. His dream took him into a building with presses
operated by computers and lasers, a librarian who filed all
the publications. But now he doesn't speak to his wife, or
his daughters - doesn't seem to know who they are. Annoyed
by their attention, he doesn't like when they touch him. He smiles
sometimes, tries to get up when the girl comes in the afternoon.
Reaches out to her and she puts his pipe in his hand, touches
his head, smiles at the boy my uncle is now.
Last week I was at a printing shop near Jerusalem with only
one press but pages were pulled and smoothed through rollers.
Levers rose and fell, ink flowed, letters became sentences.
It wasn't the King's printer but then Uncle Harold isn't either.
Stored time
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes I want to feel thin and flat
not thick and full of flesh
like a fish throbbing for the pond.
I want to be transparent
fill a corner of a cave
dark with the stench of stored time
till my daughters grow up
till their father becomes
the man I'm looking for.
I'll tell my daughters and
their father stories
about the cave and how
sunshine is like a basket of bronze
that coming home is
like a wedding.
This is home, I'm home
I'll scream
I'm blessed in such a home.
My route is feverish heights to
disordered depths
then home once more.
Controlling memories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I want to pick the apples from the tree behind my daughter's house,
make apple sauce, at least gather the fallen for salad.
I watch them roll into the grass, bird-pocked like grieving pomegranates.
They're not worth the trouble, my daughter says.
Leaves shingle the grass with crusty shapes.
I slide over, paddle along.
The swooshing hugs my shoes as I think of apple pies, clear jelly.
At her cafe, my daughter bakes cornmeal muffins
with rosemary and red pepper to be served with vegetable chili.
By mid-morning she's made apple tarts, but from apples
the grocer sends me she says mine are not good quality.
That afternoon I go with my father to 8th Avenue, where we lived
when I was a child. I look for the tree that spread over most of the yard.
The apples were a bit sour, I remember, green with a red slash on the side.
The yard looked too large; the tree wasn't there.
Another was in the very same place, a sapling
with wrinkled, pleated fruit. They're plums, I see, when I come close.
Hadn't been picked, hanging heavy from each limb.
Things have changed, said my father. The back porch has a place to sit
now.
The front steps seem wider I add as we turn to the car.
Want to talk about the tree but my father has already shut the door.
The radio is blaring.
I remembered the tree as clearly as the shape of my father's back
as he shoveled coal into the furnace by the basement window
while mother dug in the earth, pulled out lettuce for dinner.
I'm trying to hold onto something of that home, that time.
But I need to keep those memories under control, loosen their grip.
I'm straining to let go, yet afraid that if I do
there'll be nothing left of me.
Wiping away the signs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My father bought a cottage, but not for summering, for renting
to others who came to rest among the cedars beside the lake. At the
beginning of the season my parents would bring me and my sisters, work for
a week to repair the ravages of winter, replace broken glass, return
shingles to the roof, fix the stair-boards. Get the place ready for summer
fun, then take us home to the city, making sure, from there, that each
tenant passed the key to the next.
At the end of August, we'd go again. The colors had changed. Greens
flattened, but the heat still slapped my face. Hard to believe that summer
didn't burn there all year long. This time my folks repaired the ravages
of summer. They'd send us to the beach. I played with my sisters till
mother came with lunch. She'd sit for a while, her feet in the water. Cold
chicken and potato salad tasted different at the lake, store-bought cookies
had coconut ground so fine it was hardly there.
My husband tells me how he summered with his family at Winnipeg Beach. They
rented a cottage for the month, no repairs, no seasonal damage, no sloppy
tenants, just fun. He went to the roller rink in the evenings, a chance to
be with girls, he said. Cultus Lake also had a rink, but I couldn't skate.
I pressed up against the fence, watched boys take girls into the swinging
crowd. I'd find a couple that looked like they could skate forever; watch
till I was dizzy, my fingers in the spaces of the fence.
Time wrapped around the rink.
One girl came every night. As soon as she fastened her skates a boy would
lean towards her. She was born pretty. My feet throbbed, hands itched -
the pale part of me stared. Sometimes I stayed till the rink closed, my
parents on the porch drinking tea when I came back, the music twisting in
me. I wanted to be a skater, a pretty girl, propped up by a boy who would
hold me the way a young tree is staked, I would be beautiful, I believed,
because he'd reached for me.
Back in the city I'd plan how I would be next summer,
but those plans got treaded like a car moving over snow.
The impossible tangled up in me.
I know what is possible now.
As clear as instructions for Campbell's soup,
I know that anything can happen.
A Trade
~~~~~~~
Tracks clung to the grating
hard and quiet droppings
waiting obediently
like pine logs dry and unable. Flies
droned, fanning the bitter stench
that labeled the house.
Pale children
snapped marbles by the curb
saliva on their chins. The sun
strained through oak leaves.
Potatoes rotted. I hated that place
reminded me of the backyard
of an old man I called
the witch's husband.
I never looked over the fence
just held my nose
as I walked by on my way home
from school. I was in grade two
not old enough
to know I could take another route.
By grade three I walked on 7th
one block over.
I found a bush with white luscious roses
that turned to me.
Older now I traded the old man's smell
for the scent of dreams.
Paying my respects
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a bitter rain, I crowded up with other wet visitors
to enter Shakespeare's house. I pass a display of shoes
from that time, no right or left, the guide points out.
Leather uppers and metal platform lowers.
Good for a day like this, he chuckles.
My shoes have softened in the rain, wet seeps into the carpet.
The house stayed dry, I hear, with Oak from the forest of Arden
and stone from Wilmcote.
I lean forward, see writing fragments
a 1594 edition of Venus and Adonis
hear the man in front say:
Shakespeare couldn't spell.
He took part in his own plays
the guide says, there was no full manuscript,
each actor received his own part with
stage instructions.
I go toward a window with shriveled frame, move
closer, see Thomas Carlyle, 1800 scratched below, then
Walter Scott. Keats in the center
Hardy marked in the right hand corner.
Damp and chilled, I join the procession - pay my respects,
think of my own writing, how I forget
most of what I've written once it's on the page.
Only remember what needs to stay.
In the rain again, in the rose garden, a Noblean
wide as a chrysanthemum and a short Tuscany bloom
withstand the wind. Hazlenuts, surfacing the yard
curve under foot.
Fresh Asparagus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She'd fill a pot up with water, salt it, put it on the flame
but not for cabbage.
She'd stand fresh asparagus branches or let artichokes
hit the bottom
or seafood come to a quick roll. She'd toss in linguine strands
or ravioli pads, but never
cabbage. The smell takes her to her grandmother's stories
of the camps when
cabbage black with worms was handed out like truffles.
Cabbage is dull, she'd say
but really meant too stoked with sadness.
Birthing
~~~~~~~~
I should have
had more children.
A daughter in this dry land
is hardly a birthing
hardly a son
hardly a soldier
not
a male with a gun
All Poems Copyright (c) 2001 Rochelle Mass
ROCHELLE MASS Publishing acknowledgements: Some of the poems have been published in: The Jerusalem Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Midstream, Alternatives, Kimera, Voices, Taproot, Determinations South, Kibbutz Trends, Dybbuk of Delight, IAWE Anthology and the web: Poetry Magazine, Girlswrite, Poetry Life & Times. Timing - Reuben Rose Poetry Competition, 2nd prize "Where's my Home" and "Timing " appeared in Where's my Home?, poems by Rochelle Mass, published by Premier Poets Series, Rhode Island. USA.
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