translated from the Hebrew by Mildred Faintly
Nightmare
In my dream, I was being led away
to be stoned to death: an adulteress.
The mute seated judges shook their heads
as the sentence was read,
“Doomed and damned be she
who lay in wait to tempt the sinful heart of man!”
They conducted me through the city gates,
dazzling sand burned my bare feet,
what little strength I had didn’t last.
I remember the cactus along the path,
dull green with pale spines,
and above—the sky hung, dumb.
A step, a step, and then another step.
Maybe I stood for a moment, looked back
for a sign, a nod, a glance from the man
who watched my whole trial, who never met my eye.
By my silence he lived; by his silence I died.
Michal
And Michal Saul’s daughter loved David . . . And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. (1 Samuel 18: 20; 2 Samuel 6: 16)
Michal, distant sister! Unbroken is the thread
connecting us across generations, centuries—
time hasn’t hidden, beneath its greedy weeds,
the garden of your sorrow.
Unfaded they remain, your silk robe’s purple stripes,
and your golden ankle bracelets—
my ears can hear their jingle.
Michal, King Saul’s daughter, David’s bride,
I can see you peering through the lattice
of the women’s quarters, watching the street,
your beautiful look of tenderness
tempered by scorn—
Michal, distant sister in sorrow:
like you, I know what it’s like
to love a man I despise.
Gilgul
The Jews too believe in reincarnation,
we call it gilgul, which means “circling back.”
I wonder if I wasn’t once a wild beast,
my home—the open field? That would explain
my sisterly affection for all animals,
my dread of the tyrant Man.
Was I never a bird, with no better defense
than my own gray feathers, my power to fly?
The soul that wheels and hovers within me
sometimes seems like that of a bird returned.
That would account, as nothing else does,
for my drive to sing, for the sadness
of my songs, for my need to be free.
It might well be that my circle began
as a spear of Summer grass,
a blade of just that deathless emerald.
That’s the reason I’m so attached to the earth,
why I cling to the her, my real mother;
that’s the reason I find my best rest
outstretched on her tawny breast.
At Night
Then said Saul unto his servants, “Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.” —1 Sam. 28: 7
Strewn around me on the bed,
on the pillow, on the blanket,
letters, old letters, so many, all saved.
I bend intently over them, try to divine
some pattern—like the witch of Endor
who summoned up the ghost of the prophet Samuel
for Saul, Saul who feared the next day’s battle,
who felt God’s silence and guessed what that meant.
The witch of Endor sang to the dead,
the ghosts approached, rose from the ground.
Like her, I must act as necromancer,
I talk to my ghosts, they foretell nothing good.
She asked for Saul’s the outcome of battle.
Unlike her, I’ve no need to ask.
I summon no Samuel, it needs no prophet
to tell me how little future I have.
I’m more like Saul, abandoned by God,
I know in my heart that I’m already dead.
the complete poetry of Rachel Blaustein, in Mildred Faintly’s translations, has been published. Find the book here.