Hebrew

For Eliezer ben Yehuda

The letters’ flames and fists fight for their lives and ours;
plead with G-d; clamor as they clamber to the tops of their spidery spindles;
or stick, solid at the bottom, supporting the weight of all the words in the world and swirl, literate leaves in the wind, knowing that in this language,
words are things and that all things must die.
These letters work to make words that will be written, chanted, read, sung, heard;
they make art of themselves.
They embody the very paradox of God: living, yes, but also eternal.
“We refuse to grave our meaning, we ink it black on the skins of goats, licking our way to Heaven as stories, as poetry. We are the books, the blessings and the curses, the cases that won’t rest, the dissertations, assertions, exhortations, fliers, broadsheets, theses, prayers, incantations, chants and rants.”
So it was written.
At the top of each ascender, the glorious finials wave goodbye
to us always-leaving Jews,
we who are always packed, ready to be deported, our light nearly put out so many times, but rising again from embers, light again to the world —
a tongue, yes, but also a way home.