….Here’s an oldie I dug out from my files; Winter always makes me crave poetry.

Tide

Temporary sanity
filters through us all,
when the rosy-jelly-warmth of almosthappiness
settles for a time
behind our ribs and jaw.
…But there’s desire,
and imagination,
and broken promises,
that live inside our
belly
where they rise
and fall,
like tide…
Lapping up from time
to time
around our eyes – -

Where only lovers see them.
And only lovers
don’t.

- SKE, January 1998

1. Switching closets from winter to summer, seeing as I failed to do so before Passover;
2. Work for client X, due tomorrow; DONE
3. Work for client Y, due tomorrow;
4. Several technical and networking tasks involved in getting this site more spider-worthy, way overdue.

And yet. (This beloved two-word sentence is a Nicole Krauss-ism, which I have been widely borrowing, even in my everyday speech.) There is a familiar pit in my stomach that tells me I must put something down on paper. So to speak.

It’s a pit that reminds me of other pits, that makes me 16 again, and 26, all the years joined by a common physiological sense of being carried by an idea or a feeling, literally hungry for something to write. Medical science will tell you that the pit is the work of the vagus (yes, pronounced like the city in Nevada) nerve in my abdomen, which has translated the meandering chemicals of emotion from my brain into an ache of sorts.

This is all well and good but I think it’s more about the weather.

Today in Israel is what Winnie the Pooh would call a very, very blustery day. It is hot as an oven (not like a sauna) and cloudy in an overwhelming way, as if there’s a huge fire a few miles back, blowing in, or maybe a tornado. The weather is upon us. The electricity went out for a few minutes about an hour ago, and my neighbors called me from vacation to go remove whatever was blowing against their alarm sensors, which kept becoming alarmed. (I brought the pruning shears just in case I needed to fend off an actual intruder, but ended up trimming their errant roses.)

This, in short, is a desert storm (aka sandstorm), or Khamsin (Arabic); in Hebrew it’s called a Sharav, which is my favorite term for it. It is not at all uncommon to have one of these at the beginning of May, as spring turns to summer – - and I’m guessing there’s a meteorological explanation for that.

But what I know is that later on the skies will be yellowish-orange (or bright, eerie, end-of-days white) as the sun sets, as if the world was finally imploding from the economic crisis and the swine flu (Happy Windsday, Piglet!) and the Iranian menace; as if the pit in my stomach was finally expanding to envelop all of you.

I also know that I had better keep all of the windows closed if I don’t want a fine layer of orange dust all over the beds and sinks and floors.

I know that I feel longing and upheaval although it is not clear for what. And that what happens in vagus stays in vagus.

Check out a poem I wrote back in my roaring 20’s. (Suburbia still hasn’t managed to kill it for us):

Sharav (Desert Storm)

Can you show me beauty?
Nights so thick
the air suspends
the future in its teeth
ripping fleshy suburbs
from the bones of lazy poets
lovers kissing extra,
with their noses – -
slow hands;
an urgency in it
the stars are hazy fuzzy
drunken dots of fate so far away
they bear no witness
to the rhythmic frenzy
on neighborhood streets
Just tonight:
the stodgy oaks are palm trees
and boxy sidewalks turn to sand.

- SKE, March 1998

PS -By the time my host came back up in time to load this post, written yesterday, the skies have partially cleared, the wind has calmed, and the air is cool. Such is the nature of storms, I guess.

photo by: massdistraction

So, you want people?

Let them in, but just so much past the door;
otherwise they will
either park on your soul
or
you
will end up wanting more.

Choose:
Which welcome mat position?
You lose yourself,
Or you simply lose.

You know what they say:
Better to have
let them stand in the entrance hall
of you
and served them drinks and smiles
than never to have let them in at all.
…Or let them in too far.

(This should keep you busy
for a while,
Good Hostess that you are.)

- SKE, August ‘08

photo: The Simpsons, from Jon Pattillo's Blog

Leviticus 10:1-3

Brother,
these rules will be the death of us:
this “how to please me”
this tutorial of the soul.
How can passion
wear a girdle?
Answer questions?
Wash?
Where is the sacrifice
in this ritual
if our flesh isn’t in it?
Our everything,
sewn together with time…
Brother,
this lust
grows dusty
with regulation
and waiting
and brain;
It’s the ancient inertia again.
Time we climbed out of the Egypt in ourselves…

When we were slaves,
we moved,
we cried;
The One We Long For
split the sea
for bony wretches in shrouds
- – in clouds.
And now:
Princes
in regal whites,
we lounge like old women – -
knitting our urges into underwear,
cozy and maddening
and pink.
Brother,
it will be
the death of us
to think.

- SKE, May 2001

This poem was inspired by, and is imprecisely based on, a class on the Torah Portion of “Shmini,” given by Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg.

photo by: bankbryan

I am a predator of minutes; slurping up memory from the corners,
sniffing out tasks from the walls;
A beast stalking quiet: also things never done, and the things never thought,
and sitting.

Tunneling backwards in a suburban vertigo,
I can feel late Sunday afternoon in November
at a rest stop in New Jersey; Coming back from a visit at Grandma’s in New York.
I am fifteen,
it’s raining,
and there is school tomorrow,
but only here at Someplace Named for War or History,
do I finally have a few moments alone, and nothing urgent
to possibly be.

Out of place, at peace, bored and alive.
Strangeness a segue to myself. The turnpike always gave me gray butterflies,
the Becoming of it.

It feels like that.

- SKE, October 2004

photo by: Dean Terry

Our Lady of Compromise
- at the Corner of
Stability and Main -
invites you to a
Sisterhood Brunch
in Honor of
Everyone Being the Same.

Weekly Services
are held:
Every Minute
you are in it.
(- And you’re expected to attend…
although significant contributions
of money or time
allow one to
more than occasionally
offend.)

The Rules, Luther-like,
are nailed up on
the door;
Parishioners encouraged
to come up with more.

- SKE, January ‘09

photo by: mpclemens

(Remember the joy of jagged yearning?)

I watch fulfillment share its lazy bed with sleep – -
warm with babies and stability,
stuffed with calories, consistency and compromise.

Only: It’s good weather and a bad mood,
an aching stomach and an occupied mind,
old memories that don’t quite add up
ever and
that thing of needing something else, someone more –
(feeling poor)
that keep me lean and honest,
buzzing.

Now I know:
Fuzzy satisfaction is a thief of skill.
And: Love is ultimate but it makes you slow.

Nuzzling my soft smiling miracles on the rug and feeling
grateful peace, at one with God and Other,
at all times must be coupled with a sharp contraction
of appetite for Self,
– - or else the fat, sorry
sins of chocolate and happiness
will turn me into
Someone’s Mother.

- SKE, May 2006

photo by: hugovk

The Who-Was-I-Before
makes you want:
to crawl into the lap
of Time
and weep,
sleep.
Be tucked in, a pink nightgown
and combed hair,
passion a thing with permission;
as long as you don’t yell
(or slam the door.)

You want:
to apologize and collect,
correct and sin.
Begin.
Again with what you know.
Grow.
While Yesterday cooks you dinner and draws a heart
on the bandaid where your hurt;
(Weakness
so
delicious
as
dessert.)

- SKE, Feb. ‘08