626
PARTISAN REVIEW
After the festival, on the square in front of the Western Wall, behind
the backs of the women who pray with pursed lips, pigeons flutter above
scraps of bread. I return from my walk through the Dung Gate, by the road
that climbs above the village of Silwan. The steeple of Dormition Abbey on
Mount Zion is visible to the east. In an Arab courtyard, seen from the road
above, are bird intestines on a tin tray. I see a lemon tree, a pink towel on a
wire, hyssop on the ruined wall that holds a sink, a tourist bus groaning up
the steep hill and disappearing at the turn of the road. The alert, penetrating
staccato voice of the American poet Robert Creeley comes to mind:
in the late light, each
edge of grass stalk
a tenacious fact of being there,
not words only, but only words,
only these words, to say it.
. . . no matter the imperfect
useless gesture, all that is lost,
or mistaken, the arrogance
of trying to, the light comes again,
comes here, after brief darkness is still here.
