My Jerusalem is
gold
wet stones
copper sunshine in the morning
prayerful words, fighting their way to my lips.
Grapefruit and pomegranates, and
the most passionate people of the four corners of the earth
converging, colliding, headily.
My Jerusalem is
Ma nishma?
Yalla!
Boker tov!
My Jerusalem is
raw emotion, tears – from where??, a soaring love that
threatens to break out of me,
threatens to break out of me,
beautiful people and beautiful art,
soulful words, scribbled on construction sites.
Taxis filled, bursting, with the personalities of their
oh-so-colorful drivers.
oh-so-colorful drivers.
My Jerusalem is
Shabbat Shalom
and
Baruch Hashem.
My Jerusalem is
far.
Away.
Reading this today actually brought tears to my eyes. I've been to Israel 3 times, the last time in 2010. My brother and his family live there and I miss my baby niece so much!
Thank you for posting this today. Beautiful.
Oh how I miss it.
Reading your words make it seem closer, Ruchi. My Jerusalem used to be construction dust and chaos, but just recently it became beautiful new Jaffa Road and the smooth walk through Jaffa Gate. It's still unbelievably crazy drivers. It's the smells of spices and halva hawkers at Mahane Yehuda. Flavors and colors and styles of religious Jews that I'll never see anywhere else. Shtreimels so tall they seem to defy gravity. It's Gut Shabbos and Shavua Tov and assistance from strangers. It's pressing my forehead and belly against The Wall as I cry words of gratitude that I know are inadequate. It's love and connection and yearning and dissatisfaction and ancestral memory.
Beautiful