Thursday, May 23, 2024: Natalie Itzhaki's "Perhaps a Bird"

Perhaps a bird ate the breadcrumbs laid by the side of the road 

by the woodcutter’schildren.

It isn’t bad, being lost in a forest where its stems have yet to fall.

Only the fruit from the Tree of Life with its glory asks that I wearily lose my

branches.

I think nothing happened after the gate was finally closed and I crawled on my belly.

Would like today to emanate you all with grace.

Generically rebound my soul. Take it all –

A cinnamon stick I left in my room, and its odor, has yet to expire,

My words which I did not want to give back.

You can read all that I have concealed from you,

My worst works of art.

To ask my peers all that I did not wish to tell my other friends.

Take away my favorite clothes. Those which I did not want to lose in my abstraction.

All the money that was left. If any remained.

Give away all that I’ve made in my vocation to those who desire it.

You can throw away all the insults I was unable to release. Along with

The keenness and the envy.

Try to forgive the moments of selfishness

Cherish the love which I was able to give,

Don’t analyze to death. That line has already passed.

Give your loved ones gifts. The loneliness will scatter through homes until the end.

And about me.

Please.

Leave me over the fence,

And god will claim my soul.

© 2024 Natalie Itzhaki (translated by Taly Meirav)

Natalie Itzhaki (1983), a native Israeli poet, has published her poems in various Israeli magazines and journals. She’s published three poetry books; forbidden swim shore (2010); after the comma, love (2013), and calling you from among the flames, (2019). Itzhaki is a deaf children educator, and professional Israeli sign language interperter.

Thursday, May 16, 2024: Lynne Bronstein's "The Tears Run Together"

 The Tears Run Together

I am weary and cannot bear to stay awake

But the Shekinah

Pries my eyes open.

She tells me to look

And I see a woman,

Veiled, holding a dead child.

Cry, she says, for mothers of Gaza.

Then she turns my head

In another direction

And I see more women,

More children,

The dead piled upon the lonely

Bones, the bodies still screaming

From the wresting out of their souls,

Cry, she says,

For the mothers of Israel.

On the earth, some look away

From the dreadful sight,

And some make accusations

While others deny

That they see anything at all.

Does it matter what the reason was

For this slaughter?

Can our wrath be aimed

At only one side?

The Shekinah

Cries at the sight

Of women handled by brutes

Until the handling kills them.

And the Shekinah howls even louder

At those who refuse

To believe

That what hurts one

Hurts all.

The Shekinah

Wants us to meet somewhere

Reach out and touch,

And if we are unable to fully understand,

To at least cry together

For an unarticulated

Answer

To a crisis that does not need to be.

© 2024 Lynne Bronstein

Bio: Lynne Bronstein is the author of Nasty Girls (Four Feathers Press) and four other books of poetry. She has been published in magazines ranging from Playgirl to Chiron Review, from Lummox to anthologies in England, Ireland, Canada, and India. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies and has been read on National Public Radio. She also writes a column on Facebook called Show Biz Cats.