Two Lines of Poetry

The book was just one,

Of one hundred and twenty

Books

Assigned to years

Two languages

Two lines

of poetry.

I laugh because yesterday

I learned one word

Means

To list

To sketch

The things we must remember

But also have time to forget

Poetry

More told in less

Pen marks

Unearth

Deepest black

My truest path

Between scarred

Earth and souls

A gift from my mother

Like the rest

I never asked for

But she was sure

I wanted.

Not the watch

Nor the locket

**A song of my homeland:  The knowledge

of its waters starts with tears.

Water

Stones

Push against me

Rise under me

Fingers

Spread

Grasp

Steady

Foundations

Two languages

Two lines

Of poetry

Reveal

Me to myself,

And still,

I’m surprised.

Water

Stones

Push against me

Rise under me

Recognition

Vibrates

Whispers

Transforms

Questions into belonging

Pages

Wrinkled

Tear stained

Swept

Folded

Into stones

Sometimes I love water, sometimes stone.

These days I’m more in favor of stones.

But this might change.

Histories

Voices

Seep

Rise

Cycle

From seas

The storm

The rivers underneath

What remains

On my skin,

Under my tongue,

Are salt

And poems.

**From Songs of Zion the Beautiful, #33

Amichai, Yehuda. (1988). Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems.  The Sheep Meadow Press:

            New York, pg. 85.