Bluma

I miss him, he’s the one who half-fixed my name and to whom my copy of Golem belonged — and I still don’t remember if I stole it or not!

The cover of a CD called ‘Romemu — Exalt’ picturing a shul in Curacao

I am seriously considering buying this CD (and facing whatever the import charges are) just to hear my old cantor’s voice again.

the speaker watching as he heads toward the forest, almost always a transformative or magical place in Leivick’s work — and sprouts wings as he goes.

I really don’t lean toward peddler.

The geyer smiles, makes an announcement to all the doors — presumably still in the hospital, possibly Liberty sanatorium at this point — that the time has come, and leaves—

The speaker gives slightly evasive answers (Leivick’s seven deaths of 1932’s Naye Lider is now seven births), the pulse (mentioned in several of the poems in the sequence) only starts when you’re already dead.

But courtship isn’t the aim here, as in a lot of riddle poems. Or, at least, it’s a different kind of courtship. They’re slightly ominous questions, the mood being underscored by what the word is doing on the speaker’s mouth at the time.

One that might be forgotten about, until he appears again, near the end, to present the speaker with a series of questions.

Here I think we see and echo of a common form — the Yiddish riddle song, the most famous of which is probably ‘Tumbalalaika.’

What he seems to be, in a less formal sense, is frightening.
The speaker has to confide that he sees this geyer and then asks if she doesn’t see him…which puts a slightly odd spin on the encounter.

Now a geyer can be a few things. They can be a peddler or salesman. They can just be someone walking. I’m not quite sure I’ve decided what he formally is yet.

— ‘Be my guest’ — He is silent a while. (The word trembles on my tongue) Suddenly — such childish questions: (You will come to me, you will come) How old am I, should I tell him? (The word ignites on my tongue) And how fast is my pulse? (Will you not come to me? Will you not come?) And where did my cradle stand? (The word is like flame on my tongue) Here or in some other land? (Will you not come? Never come?) I answer with mocking words: (The word lies oppressed on my tongue) ‘My cradle stands in seven places (I will come to you, I will come) ‘A man isn’t born once, (The word dances on my tongue) ‘The pulse first comes to life in the coffin —‘ (You will come to me. You will come.) My words please the comer. (The word doesn’t want to be on my tongue) He says over all the thresholds: (I will come to you, I will come) ‘It’s here — the hour of hours, (The word is like blood on my tongue) ‘Adieu.’ — He disappears and — is no more.) (Will you not come? Never come?) I send my song-poem to the gates. (The word rejoices on my tongue) The geyer walks with face to the woods. (I will come to you, I will come) He strides, he skips over hills, (The word is sweet on my tongue) On mirrored white wings. (You will come to me, you will come)

I’m rather intrigued by this poem toward the end of the ‘Merciful Sister’ sanatorium cycle/sequence…early in the series, the speaker tells the ‘sister’ — she’s a nursing sister — that he sees someone by the gate: a geyer….

(quick and dirty as always, no attempt at preserving the rhyme here)

I think I’m out until all the AWP stuff chills out. Maybe longer. Whatever.

during a visit and drops them, proceeding to lie to her about their weight to try to make it easier on her.

Anyhow, they’re quite beautiful poems.

rather that he loves her more, with an uncomplicated love.

One of the saddest moments in Oyf Tsarisher Katorga (hopefully the new Spanish edition means I won’t have to provide citations in the future to prove its not a novel) is when he’s attempting to hide his chains from his mother

The Scent of Years Gone By The scent of years gone by Enveloped me in sweet streams; Even when you say: I am satisfied with my years — Your words rise like white dew over the abyss. Who streams from the chasm with outstretched hands, With ten thin bright fingers? If I weren’t ashamed of myself, I’d say I see my mother’ young soul. I am ashamed of myself, though, Because I don’t know why my white old age deserves To rise flaming, before the conclusion of passage, When all breath becomes colder, colder. Perhaps my mother’s bright form Kept itself in the shadow of Paradise, To be able to come when I was old To no longer part from me. I don’t know why I long for that sort of miracle, Why only hearing her name doesn’t suffice. The scent of years, sharp and sweet as lilac, Drowned me in its streams.

While Leivick has a lot of father-poems — he himself calls it a ‘complex,’ in Blat Oyf an Epylboym there are several mother-poems. Leivick explains this general imbalance doesn’t have to do with loving his mother less, but

This was always going bad places. It’s just a matter of how bad.

This is news to me, as well.

Leave me to phlegm-up in peace.

I feel like my UK citizenship test (upstairs in the Overgate shopping centre in Dundee) didn’t focus on the things I really need.

The UK is sending a man who built a Furby organ to Eurovision.

I am actually in awe.

Since everyone has decided to go on holiday without me next week, I am committing to a week of music on vinyl, eating actual vegetables, and watching movies that make me cry until my head hurts

Maybe I’ll finally get to see Poor Things.

I am very glad I got to tell Alasdair Gray I liked his books

This.

No is fine. No even after saying yes is fine.

Ghosting and leaving me to doubt if you even got the email is not fine.

Ghosting and making it obvious through things you do elsewhere that I never had the slightest chance, even though you initially said yes, is fucking diabolical.

Another favourite detail was that quoting your own poetry back to you was a thing and he did it Melekh Ravitch, too.

I’m definitely reaching the end and I don’t know what I’ll do after that. It’s difficult.

A small, distant memory: Thirty-eight years ago, I lived in Mani Leib’s house for a time. He was already a family man, I — not yet. We were both labourers. He — shoes, I — paper-hanging. We worked hard during the day and wrote poems at night. He was already well-known for his poems, and I was happy I lived in the same house as him. I’d already started making the first drafts of my dramatic poem ‘The Golem.’ Once, late at night, I lay on my bed and wrote. Mani Leib was out of the house somewhere. Suddenly, I head a sharp knock at the door of my room. I rushed, frightened, to the door, opened it — Mani Leib stood on the threshold, looking at me with wide eyes, smiling half-amused, half-serious. ‘What’s the matter, Mani Leib?’ I asked. Mani Leib replied: ‘I came home and saw your light was on through the crack in the door to your room. I know you were writing and that it’s long past midnight, but I was seized by a desire to knock on your door —’ he didn’t finish, remaining standing silently a while, then said emphatically: ‘Don’t be angry with me. It was a good envy, a brotherly one. Don’t be angry.’ I was very moved by that Mani Leib simplicity. ‘What’re you talking about, Mani Leib?’ I said, ‘not only am I not angry with you but, on the contrary, your knocking on my door is wonderful to me. And to prove how deeply touched I am, I’ll recite for you, right now, a little poem of yours which hasn’t stopped singing within me since I read it.’ Mani Leib was full of excitement. I recited his poem ‘The Night’: She will go about unseeing, Groping with blind fingers In swallowed-up streets, Tapping with blind fingers On locked windows. She will sit by a fence, Black hair unkempt, And lie in wait for someone, And beguile someone, And grieve someone. Mani Leib’s eyes shone as though with tears… Thirty-eight years have now passed since then. It would be good if I could read it aloud now, too, so that he might hear. But this is no longer possible.

I love that they were housemates.

I (think I) see what you did there, Mr. Halpern.

This is an occupational hazard.

My partner gets very out of joint about my telling the kids about getting marched to Siberia whenever he decides to take an endless ramble somewhere…

If it isn’t obvious, I find both World Book Day and the Famous Five to be things beyond my ken.

I don’t understand why they go nuts for Blyton and not, say, L’Engle, who was my childhood touchstone.

I could respect going as the Famous Five’s trained attack dog.

Last year she was George (also of the Famous Five). Will next year be her Timmy year?

My kid insisted on going to school dressed as Anne from the Famous Five, which basically consists of dressing normally, and I realise I have absolutely no impact on anything in my house.

And now we are back in the town, in the four-story, full of holes, Notre Dame monastery. The Arab canons shot it to pieces. Now it’s a military post of the Israeli Army. The building stands just at the boundary line which divides new Jerusalem from the Old City, which is now under the control of the Arabs. Inside the building, everything is destroyed, broken. All the stairs and ways up to the upper stories are ruined. One can now only reach the very top with the help of improvised ladders, which are fixed from the floor to all four ceilings. You must clamber up the ladders from one floor to another. The ceilings are high, the climb is very strenuous, and even risky. But the party ignored it all and climbed. The main attraction is that the very highest floor, you saw all of Jerusalem at hand, and particularly, could see Old Jerusalem well from there, with close view of the Western Wall, for which new Jerusalem longed ceaselessly. I watched as the crowd climbed into the empty space of the monastery floors over the four ladders, up and down, up and down, and it reminded me of the ladder in Jacob’s dream…Going up and coming down, going up and coming down. I, of course, didn’t stand aloof from the crowd. I went up the ladders, from one floor to another, from the second to the third, from the third to the fourth. True, no easy matter. Even for very young people, not easy. The height is dizzying to eyes, catches the breath. But the pleasure of surviving all the ladders which Israel (the very same Jacob) had both accepted and climbed himself, and now he must in reality, not only in a dream, make of them a true ladder to the very heavens — I do not want to miss this pleasure.

A bit out of breath, you reach the topmost roof. Now there is revealed before you the whole distance around the very centre of Jerusalem, and you marvel again at the beauty seen not long ago. And here you see, very closely, with your own eyes, the wire fencing which divides the city. You see the roofs near the very place where the holy wall is found. Not far from the fence, you see an Arab gathering in a courtyard, groups of people. Children. Each looking up at top of the Notre Dame tower. A barbed wire has lain itself down in the very middle of the city and divided it into two separate, enemy, worlds. The barbed wire — ach, if not for barbed wire! Up and down, up and down, people climb and descend the ladders. I amongst them, as well. Up and down. Our breath catches. But our Jewish breath helps us, lifts us. Going up and coming down — Jacob’s dream. Jacob saw in his dream how angels climbed up to heaven on the ladders. Angels. And us? How high to the heavens can we climb? We climb up four floors. And — further? And — higher?…

In 1937, the ghost (yes) of Yosef Haim Brenner warns Leivick he can only go the Western Wall once. And that turns out to be true.

But in 1950, he does see it again. I hope someday I get the rest of that trip, it’s probably the most historically interesting.