Jerusalem, Out the Window – I

He comes up the wide marble stairway and says: the place is teeming with Shin Bet.

They are a pair.
(Sometimes she needs to take a juicy bite.)

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(Jerusalem air)

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I’m British Mandate-ish, she announces.

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(Not good with a map.)

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Being driven by an Arab, of course, on Shabbat.
Will they get stoned?

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Birds come in and peck their chocolates, mess up their nuts.

How to gather the fruit?

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She tries to sit up straight. Her bones—a skewed frame.

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Some Al Aqsa call-to-prayer, now.

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Slept.
He released her?

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With a sacrifice, you slaughter, whereas a burnt offering becomes smoke?

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(pagan)

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One of them was taken away—security.

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But shouldn’t a state be a parent, rather than a bratty or brilliant child?

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Osama bin Laden—dead.

The skin on her nose—dry.

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The journalist said: What are the implications?

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She notices that her cousin’s hair is falling out and thinks she may be on the edge of getting it—finally—unless she’s playing a fool’s game.

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Jerusalem plate: tahini, hummus, olives, chopped salad, eggplant, white cheese. Pita.

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Bin Laden’s picture on the front page of the Herald Tribune.

At the cocktail party, her friend said: Yes, and a hundred new terrorists were born yesterday.

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She pulled her off to the side and asked, May I show you something?Then opened her coat to reveal the colorful lining.

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In the little square near the Iraqi market in the souk, the pensioners sit outside the coffee houses playing shesh besh; the card players sit inside.

All male, of course.

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Guides tell you where to look, attempting to make you see.
Like a fly in her face, she kept swatting him away.

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That rabbi may have pushed her a little closer to understanding how a terrorist is made.

Excised from the theory of Zionism.

Like a fly, he swatted her away.

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Vanilla ice cream with tahini, honey, and pine nuts.

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(She doesn’t believe in any divinity but the spark of it that may flash out: light through a splinter of glass.)

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Will she wear her sandals to the Knesset?
Or put on black shoes?

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She gets up to go to the bathroom and when she comes back, there’s a cashew at the bottom of her tea.
The birds around here work rapidly.

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Osama bin Laden is dead.
Her Judaism flew out the window.
The pineapple is beginning to rot.

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Embrace what’s exiled in us? Admit to the diaspora of any human heart?

Jerusalem, Out the Window – II

Nihad, the taxi driver, is late.
When her cellphone rings, she shouts: Wayn-ak?!

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They stop and he buys a small bag of fresh garbanzos, which they eat, popping them from the thin green shell, as he drives the long way around to avoid long lines at the main checkpoint.

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Re-wiring the religious instinct, mind by mind, synapse by synapse?

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She reads that wolves turned dog by learning to be nice.

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The next level of domestication?

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Less tongue-tied than mute—she can’t think.

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A form of reform. Resuscitation?

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Neglecting the children?

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How to be the society that forms (while also being the society that is formed)?

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You: background presence as she tries to think this through.

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This is where Freud and politics come together: a small revolution—a revelation.

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Ditch religion’s accoutrements while utilizing its blood?

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(always red)

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Religion’s plumbing, science’s wiring.
(liquid heart, electric brain)

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Maybe a version of science, but it always comes back to heart-to-heart.

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Everyone picking apples from the same tree, biting into them raw.
Despite different words, doesn’t an apple taste the same to all mouths?
(You can only assume.)

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Another difficult night.
Tears, etc.

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On a high mountain in the West Bank, south of Bethlehem, they break bread with Palestinians and Jews, a dog scares a woman, good people receive flowers and words of praise for their generosity and bravery.

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She believes she may understand a killer better than she understands someone who does the kind of good that truly changes the world.

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Achieve sainthood by writing oneself into steam or a snowflake?

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Good instincts on where to put the money.

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Not holy, she doesn’t belong in the holy land.

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(holey)

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moth-eaten?

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Peace-makers?
World-changers?
Civilization-tweakers?

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Palm trees—she sees the sea.

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They’re talking about non-violent transformation of conflict.
Do you urge conflict toward resolution? Do you stir it up? (What are your ulterior motives?)

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(the tortured goose’s liver: a food for hardly starving humans)

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The way you mark and handle your days, what you can adequately hold in the palm of a hand.

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bit, inch, pound, minute
Crease?

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The world is supposed to end today. In Manhattan, it’s gorgeous.