Poem 3 - "More Songs of Zion"

More Songs of Zion
Avigayil Rosensweig


There is no dirt beneath my feet
Instead, shall I favor the flagstone?
Walls built by one they call Magnificent
They are old, but nothing to
The ancientness which lies beneath

The ashes of your sanctuary--scattered
Bulldozed and brought to Mount Scopus
Only the outermost of your inner walls
Do not lift your eyes higher--
Gold is blinding in sunlight

Instead I will fly to the Galilee--to the desert--to the hills
On borrowed wings
To watch scrub brush turn green in springtime
Crumbling dust swells with water
Ibex flit swift-hooved among the stones
Curved horns slicing the sky

I perch on a synagogue sill
Carved like a seven-branched candle
Voices unravel, weave together
The chamber is hung with cloth--
Spaces and people are draped with it

The fog rises, the window clouds
My wings unfurl through darkness,
Shedding feathers one by one,
They settle down like snowflakes--
The last before your floodlit parapets
I have ridden the nightfall home

A man walks the flagstone--
His son rides his shoulders
The strings of his fringes trail into his father's sidelocks
Drip down--twine together

inspired by--dedicated to--R' Yehuda HaLevi

Comments

  1. EliAzizollahoffFebruary 20, 2018 at 9:12 PM

    The imagery here is incredibly strong the the narrator is being a dove is both blatant and subtle in a very artful way. My main two comments are that there are a few words that seem cumbersome (namely "subterranean") and that the last stanza feels out of place due to the departure of the bird in the stanza before. Overall a beautiful poem that paints the history and present of the country in a lovely tapestry.

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  2. UnknownFebruary 21, 2018 at 12:28 PM

    Took me a while to get it, but this is beautiful. The religiosity that serves not as an undertone but takes center stage in all your poetry so far is genuine, complex and rich. I like the journey from Jerusalem to the Galilee to the synagogue. The ending "The strings of his fringes trail into his father's sidelocks
    Drip down--twine together" is beautiful imagery: I'm still thinking about what the significance is of ending this way, but I suppose it gives a certain continuity, and gives a nice "zoom in" in contrast to the "birds' eye view" (literally) of the opening stanza. My only other piece of confusion is to whom the dove is speaking in the first two stanzas, and why that second-person endearment seems to fall away. Your writing is like old Judaica with edge, and it's awesome

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  3. Gabriella Englander February 21, 2018 at 5:16 PM

    Beautiful.
    This poem expresses the journey of a bird as it flies from the Western Wall throughout Israel and then back to the Western Wall, all the while talking to the character/ symbol of Zion.
    Is the bird a dove? I see other people took it to be a dove but I'm not sure. There is nothing in the poem that specifies the species of the bird.
    If the speaker is a bird, why are their wings 'borrowed'? Who did they borrow their wings from? This makes me wonder if it is not a bird speaking, rather someone imagining the land of Israel. Perhaps, it is Rabbi Judah HaLevi himself (as you mentioned him in your dedication). Just a thought. I don't have much other support for this theory aside from the legend that he arrived in Israel only to be immediately run over by a horse as he bent down to kiss the ground for the first time, and since he never got to see the rest of the land, maybe this is why the speaker has to use "borrowed wings" as he surveys the land. Far-fetched, I know, but you never know with Avigayil....
    I did not know that the ashes of the Temple were brought to Mount Scopus.
    "Subterranean ancience" - has a lot of interior music and sounds beautiful, but I do think its sophistication stands out from the simple style of the rest of the poem.
    Is the speaker speaking to Zion or to the reader? In most places, it seems to be speaking to Zion but when the speaker instructs not to look up, it sounds like the speaker is referring to the reader. If the one spoken to in that scene is the reader, then I liked the use of direct reference to the reader- it felt personable, and transported me into the scene, as if the speaker saw me at the Western wall, looking up.
    Which synagogue's sill is shaped like a menorah, in Israel??? Are you referring to a specific, existing synagogue? Also, doesn't sill have two "l"'s?
    There were quite a few places with interior music, and they were subtle, between normal, unassuming words. For example: "scrub brush", "with cloth", "flit swift-hooved", "drip down - twine together"
    How does "crumbling dust swell with water"? Where in Israel does this occur? The only place I could think of is when the snow caps on Mount Hermon melt and pool into the Kinneret, and flood further through the desert ("crumbling dust") into the Dead Sea.
    I thought the ending was harmonic, balanced. It brought the poem round full circle to the Western Wall, and ended on a note of unity between the religious items (the sidelock and fringes), generations (father and son). I was inspired with the message of religious continuity, which reflects the central theme in the poem, continuity - the continuity of the Western Wall from the day's of Herod (which by the way, wasn't he called 'the great', and not the 'magnificent') until today , of the land of Israel, of day to night to day.
    I think you can cut some unnecessary words like the and them. ex: cut both 'the's from "The fog rises, the window clouds" and cut 'them' from "Dropping them like snowflakes".
    I especially liked the description of the return flight home to the Western Wall ( the feathers dropping).
    Kudos. I am thoroughly impressed with this poem.

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  4. Professor MillerFebruary 23, 2018 at 2:04 PM

    One of the things that makes this poem effective is the specificity of diction in choices like "flagstone" (which is also great because the buried word "flag" relates to the theme), "Ibex flit" (perfect verb), "a synagogue sill" (effective alliteration), and floodlit parapets (effective consonance).

    Another effective thing about the poem is your use here of more symmetrical and balanced stanzas than in previous submissions. It's not that symmetrical stanzas are always good. Rather, it's that I think the tighter and more balanced form helps to counter-balance the occasionally prosy tendency that we discussed.

    "Subterranean ancience" is musical, but the wording is a little awkward to me.

    I thought you could improve this by changing the agency in some of the sentences, so it is not the speaker doing things but the things themselves doing things. For example:

    I spread my wings through darkness,
    Shed my feathers one by one,
    Dropping them like snowflakes--

    I thought this might work better like this:

    My wings unfold through darkness,
    Shedding feathers one-by-one.
    They flutter down like snowflakes--

    Likewise, I thought the end could use some editing. I submit this version for your consideration:

    A man paces the flagstone--
    A [or "his"?] son rides his shoulders

    Also, maybe "To watch scrub brush green in the springtime" is better without "turn."

    But these are little things in a largely successful poem that pays loving tribute to a land and its people. Good stuff.

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  5. Goldie FelsensteinFebruary 24, 2018 at 7:39 PM

    I loved how this poem encompassed so many references from the destruction,. to mashiach, and everything in between. I enjoyed the rich and vivid imagery .
    "Only the outermost of your inner walls
    Do not lift your eyes higher--
    Gold is blinding in sunlight" - these lines in particular were my favorite. I loved how you describe the Kotel without actually saying what it is.
    I like how your poems are rich in culture and religion.
    As for the last stanza, it was cool how you tied in father and son, because essentially, everything in Judaism is about passing it on to your son and future generations!
    Great job, Avigail!

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  6. Avigayil RosensweigMay 9, 2018 at 4:26 PM

    Updated

    ReplyDelete

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