Midbar
You can never cross the desert midbar
It’s too busy speaking out who you are,
Writing on your weary bones in lime.
Cham by sun and kar by stars.
Footprints blow away with time
But Adamah in my adam dam;
Grains in everything I eat,
My blood raised on kiddush wine.
Zakar zeker underneath my feet
The history we do repeat
Over land we’ve gone before,
That struggles with short term memory.
Hold me, hold me, I say, “zachor,”
Keep me I am generations far
From the swallowing sea
From the walking down the har.
The sea swallowed a pursuing army
And let an entire nation free
But all are harbored in this earth
And all are written lihiyot to be.
Like a screaming at a birth
Your wind in aleph for all it’s worth
Sings me into being,
Churning up my living thirst.
What of hashem that I am seeing?
All we have and all koreem
Li koreem li Esther Devorah
The queen and the honey bee.
The negev isn’t something you get over.
You are the slate for chalk to cover,
And you are a bowl of stars
To hold them hold them for your ever.
So many, here, have gone to war.
So many try to claim and mar
Those with many many names
And aims for why they are,
But the desert writes them all the same
Without a care, without a blame
In between its howling lines
Which refuse to be trimmed or tamed.
Midaberet, midbar your designs
In oily powder soft and fine,
Ride me, write me home.
Sun to see and sun to blind.
Mirages sweetly come
While we dig up our bones
Dreams are made of memories
And history on dreams is honed.
Koreem li Elise, Elise, Elise
And koreem li free, and free and free
To be a million things
That pass beneath your breeze.
A litany of priests and kings
March on, march on, march on and sing
The nigun of Miriam
While it is only just one thing.
Hold me, hold me for a time.
Store me like a drum,
For I am your echo and your rhyme
Until my time has come.
~
Malchut
My malchut,
My root
Reaching as I sing
The bright nigun,
Sacred tune.
My malchut,
My root
Like a grape vine
Years before wine.
Anchored in need
To feed,
But to feed up
To slake the thirst
Of higher cups.
My malchut,
My root
Is earth caked,
In dark raked,
But the songs are sung,
The leaves are hung
And it was born of sun.
My malchut,
My root
Holds me in place
While chesed makes chase
The rabbis song
I sing along
To bring green blessing,
My heart professing
And I am nothing more
Than I ever was before;
Only reason breaks
Only reason makes
Us take the separate
The vast and great.
By the stained glass,
By a world of grass
I am shaking a mane of light
And I am reaching bright
But there is nothing so reassuring
As my malchut,
My root
That does the stirring.
~
Ophanaim
Ride on, ride on, we all have our ways.
How long have I been here
It seems like for days.
Once I headed for space
Where mayim adds hash,
And ani, ani was erased.
In its place, a miles long dash.
Once I rode my bike
Just to kayak and walk
And ophanaim I like
And oh how the seraphim talk.
Ride on, ride on, we all have our ways.
It’s been so long
since I’ve been to play.
This body revolting,
This body in hock
I sit here molting
With this body locked.
Once I was so strong
I could clear a whole field.
Once I was so young
I could eat a whole meal.
Ride on, ride on, we all have our ways,
And soon I will go for it’s sheol to stay
Ophanaim below charged by the path
Of up and down blessings though I’m bad at the math
And think much more of the good things.
~
Desert Poem
I forget the time I ran
By those wadi beds
And I can’t remember
The year that was marked
In chalk upon my head
But I would spend most of my life
Getting it back again.
And I’m trying to find my way here
But I keep knowing my place
And I keep trying to rewrite my name
But the old one won’t be erased
And I’m buying up a future
On a past that won’t replace.
And I am petrified by all this stone
Can feel the steel eating through my skin
But once I knew the lightness of my bones
And once I knew the weight of desert wind.
And my lungs were two broken vacuums
And my tongue was a busted cup
And I just felt thirsty enough
To want something to fill me back up
But now I’ve swallowed everything
And nothing is enough
And everyone knows their way here
And everyone’s marking their time
And everyone’s running in place here
So committed to this crime.
And I am petrified by all this stone
Can feel the steel eating through my skin
But once I knew the lightness of my bones
And once I knew the weight of desert wind.
I want to look up to know the time
And by the time I figure it out it is already gone.
I want to resign my name in lime
And the only way to stay is to keep writing on,
And the only way to stay is to keep riding on.
Oh you know I was never meant to stay
I just came here to return your invitation
But it seems I have I have gone astray
When I walked in the door, took my coat off and sat on down.
Oh people like me we were never meant to stay
And I’m going if that means I’m going alone
Beholden to only that which blows away
And the earth that reflects the dust in my bones.
__________
Elise Levitt is an Astoria-based poet with a degree in creative writing from Hofstra University. She also holds a masters in early childhood special education. She frequently uses her connection to Judaism in her poetry.