|
|
About
Contact Archive Donations Subscribe to Today's Situation | ||
 News from Israel
|
 Peace: Educational Resources
|
 Pleasure:Poetry and other Arts |
 Ariga's Amazon Bookstore
|
Home
Poetry || SubmissionsRochelle Mass' latest book, The Startled Land, was published by Wind River Press in late October 2002. You can download a copy of the pdfversion presskit here. Or visit the Wind River Press web site for the book.The Startled Land By Rochelle Mass Trees don’t look the same in winter. Sleet is heaviest on pines. Branches moan. In a storm, trees and fences are the first to go. Landmarks disappear—everything gets rearranged, smudged, flattened. Things grow invisible, except icicles, as thick as carrots. The strongest part of winter is the light. I turn from the glare leave just enough reflection to remind me where I am and hold on to any kind of order—a street light, the top of a fence. Watch my breath escape, see the words go before they’re heard. Snow startles the land. Colors freeze and sounds shiver. My face turns porcelain, burns like fever. I came to join the women I came to a place where cotton grew out of yellow hearts where bitter olives were picked and cured where melons with green flesh grew on the top of the hill where etched numbers from camps were told and told again. Why did you come they ask me, and ask again. I couldn’t say then but after twenty years and more I know I came to join the women before me. Devorah first to judge and Yael first to command troops on the Gilboa ridge and Jezebel who flashed oval eyes at soldier boys and Michal daughter to a king who lost his head on that same height of land. I came to join the women before me take my place, make things new in the valley of Jezre’el, the lord himself sowed. After they drained the swamps, I came after Golda joined a kibbutz just down the road after eucalyptus rooted into the tough earth and after pines and sycamore bent to the wind. Why did you come? Why do you stay? they ask I walk down the road to the Kings’ Way where the tillers, the farmers, carve the slim land. The cotton is swelling again. I remember when I came and why. Hands on a gun The soldier has slipped onto my shoulder again, his breath skips with the road. His head falls to my chest, I straighten, tightening the part of my back that usually goes sore on rides long as this. His knee hits mine, then flips away as the bus rolls, returns to mine, stays there. I feel his muscles. Hills are drying in the June sun. Goats and two camels pass on my side and dark children sell eggplants from plastic crates. The soldier’s head falls almost into my arms, I lift his face. His hands stay on the gun, a scar goes from the thumb up the arm. Swollen and red. The bus makes a sharp turn. The low area between the hills is filled with black tents; wide women herd sheep and children to grass left after winter. The soldier has slipped again. I lift his face, saliva runs on my hand, then I touch his hair. The bus stops. Three soldiers push duffel bags in. The last eats cherries, spits out the stones. An old lady with parsley in her lap shouts at him, the next stone rolls under her skirt. The bus revs up and my soldier boy shakes himself like a dog out of water. Shalom he says to me. Shalom I say and feel the sweat I took each time I raised his head. Where are we? He asks and leans over to see more tents and goats. Almost there? He asks and answers long way yet. I want to look straight at him but study his hands on the gun, want to know if he’s afraid. There’s so much more I want to say but you can’t talk like that to a man you hardly know. Rochelle Mass' latest book, The Startled Land, was published by Wind River Press in late October 2002. You can download a copy of the pdfversion presskit here. Or visit the Wind River Press web site for the book. More writing by Rochelle Mass at Ariga: I should have gone to China and other poems Three prose poems Rozogov and Jazz, a short story from Tel Aviv Poems by Rochelle Mass Frishman: A short story Today's Situation
Back to the top
If this page was useful, please consider making a donation or use Amazon links at Ariga to go to the biggest online store in the world and help keep Ariga going. Click over to the bookstore, check out Ariga's latest recommended book, or visit one of the subject areas that interest Ariga visitors: Yiddish || Middle East Affairs || Military Affairs || Religion || Hippotherapy (Horses and Feldenkrais) || Women's Issues || Pop Culture || Cooking || American Issues || Or click over to Amazon's Top 100 Best Sellers
|
Ariga Recommends:
|
