SOULS IN THE GARDEN

by

Henry Rasof

116 Monarch StLouisville, CO 80027

(303) 664 0183 rotide@msn.com

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge Midstream for publication of “Rambam Laments.”

2

dedicated to Dina von Zweck

1933 to 2012

3

Contents

Dialogue with the Jew of Málaga 6The Ghost of Granada 7Fons Vitae 9Testimony of the Jews of Córdoba 11Rambam Laments 12The Barber of Seville 13The Vargas Family Performs at Hotel Triana 15Lament of the Jews of Jérez 17The Scent of Úbeda 18Cante Jondo (Deep Song) 19Sensing Souls in Toledo 21Scolding Alfonso the So-Called Wise King of Toledo 22I Remember Ancient Graves 23Yehudah Halevi’s Lament 24The Fado of Bonastruc ça Porta 25Besalú 27Tarazona 28Fado for Zaragoza 29The Ghost of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra Returns to Spain 30God Questions Abraham Abulafia, Prophet of Kabbalah 31Search for Survivors 32Lament of the Jews of Pamplona 35Stumbling Upon Biblioteca Abraham Zacut 36Garden in Ávila: A Fado by Moses de León 37The Burning Light 39Three Secrets 42And Now a Haiku 43Levitating in the Presence of Teresa of Ávila 44 Meeting in the Heavenly Garden 45Confession 47The Yemas of St Teresa of Ávila 48Souvenir of Segovia 49Lament of the Saint of Segovia 50The Testimony of Don Fernando Perez Coronel, Formerly Don Abraham Senior of Segovia 52Yehudah Halevi Explains Why He Left the Good Things Sefarad 54The Return of Samuel the Prince 57

4

. . . souls in the garden rise and reach the gate of heaven . . .

admire the burning splendor of the fire . . .kneel reverently . . . .—Zohar,

quoted in Spanish on a pedestal in the Jardin de Moshé de León in Ávila

.

5

Dialogue with the Jew of Málaga

I did not seek youFound me

How do I knowYour voice is true?

When you speakMy breathing is even

I sought your loveBut it was not to be had

I drew closeYou pulled away

Now I understand Your metaphors of love

I am glad you do notLaugh at me

This is how I wroteAnd had to write

Godly love, womanly love— I meant these

You now understandAs if you were writing as me today

Ibn Gabirol might have said:

This is love Fountain of lifeSimple and pureWisdom’s crown In all its complications and manifestations

6

The Ghost of Granada

Twelve stone lionsThree-cornered hats

In the labyrinthIndifferent faces

On the hillA new mosque

Early morningFrantic

I hear a voiceCannot find its source

No one knowsEven the policemen

Louder hereLouder there

I scan the alleysMemorize the map

The voice lost for a thousand yearsIs in my chest

At night in Granada I call on a puma to stalk

The most famous medieval Jew Before Maimonides

In a ravine where limestone cutsAnd olive oil stinks

Where night-blooming jasmine Precipitates a childhood memory

That is no consolation for the failure To locate even a trace of Samuel the Prince

Vizier poet Talmudist patron of the arts

7

Military commander Ghost of Granada

8

Fons Vitae

I sit looking out As far as the eye can see over the GuadalquivirSmelling the rites of spring

They are saturated with the milky-white creaminessOf the first camellia buds breaking throughThe melting snow of an unusually cold winter

The sun arcs slowly Up to its full height Over the Alcázar and the daughter of the caliph

Stands looking over the wall what Could she be thinking as the Christian soldiers move Toward their inevitable conclusion?

Those camellia buds hold Greater wisdom even than the sagesOf blessed memory

I do not ask why there was snow This year: There can be No answer

Even the gypsy fortunetellersLiving in the caves at SacramonteDo not know

How I could know Why these camellia budsWill soon burst into their greatest display of my lifetime?

I just know as I am certain The great river stretching From the mountains of the Sierras

To the Mediterranean will carry Each year floats of decaying flowers After their long-awaited outburst

And blossoms too tinged red Like the oranges they will grow intoYielding a strange almost frightening aroma

9

During the seasons of the moon As it dances among the stars on nights Almost too dark for human perception

I am sadMy friends have leftAnd the patrons of the Talmud

The philosophers as wellJews and Muslims leaving me to sit Awaiting all the many returns expressed in spring

These days unlike any otherWill be unlike any other In history what future will greet my poems

As I sit frozen in the space of the middle agesA comet become a meteor? Will anyoneEven understand what I was saying What I am saying now Why I said am saying it This way if I myself

Do not understand The mystery of childbirthOr the reason for the worlds within worlds

Why God elevates then lowers At whim if after ascending the ladder of Jacob All the way to the heights of angels

Even the noblest soul must Descend what is the point of it all? ThisI do not understand

So sit here dreamily in a thicket of confusionDetecting only the smellsColors textures of flowers beginning to bloom

Avecebron says:

Surely this will be the last Spring of its kindIn the memory of humankind

10

Testimony of the Jews of Córdoba

Sour orangesCool white walls

They spoke of duendeWhat did they know!

Hatred always freshWe were always packed

Even in the MezquitaPeople had no manners

Under a waning moon Our daughters’ shoes clacked along the cobblestones

Dirges everywhereMusic far behind

You had to totally believeAnd then some

We are going to CazorlaWhere the limestone is rough

The only TorahIs right here, now

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Rambam Laments

1Calle de los JúdiosWhere I received my medicine

The white houses Are expensive

In my plazaEl museo del toros

Around the cornerAverroes and Seneca

You buried my children in the city wallsAnd gave me a statue in Córdoba

2From the dialogue of faithAnd reason came my child with the porcelain face

I invite everyoneTo her birthday

All that remains Souvenir shops selling Solomon’s Seals

Still, I have a statue and a futureWhat about you?

Street of JewsSquare of Tiberias

Scent of fishTaste of pork

In the beautiful waterfall that was My daughter’s black hair

Only costly white Ash lingers in the stifling August air

12

The Barber of Seville

One late August evening104 in the shade

Oh the shops are prettyThe tapas tasty

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

Men with Jewish DNA Selling hams in the shops

Flamencos in the clubsStriving for the deep song

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

Young couples embraceObliviously on bridges and street corners

Old men in the parksArgue whether to exhume Lorca

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

Bright white egrets perchBeside the Guadalquivir

Colonies of feral cats Screech in the rushes

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

Someone asks me directionsAs if I were a native

How should I know Where anything is?

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

13

Whitewashed towns kept freshYear after year by denial

Men still do not talk to their brothersWomen to their sisters

Twenty thousand Jewish childrenBuried alive, buried alive

In countries like thisAll a stranger can do is weep

In countries like thisAll a stranger can do is weep

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The Vargas Family Performs at Hotel Triana I walk along Calles Levies and Pérezinto echoes of the children’s voices A thickness of ghosts lamenting A botanist cross-breeds strains of cornseeking the wild ancestor Cantaores seek the wild lone ancestor When I see babies held and huggedI think— Seek resolutioninto one pure sound In the Hotel Triana courtyard gypsies dance until three am A dancer penetrates the stage her partner pulling on his fly Hotel Trianahotel of sighs Night of waning moonscent of orange

Black hate kills beauty I walk along the riverof wakeful dead souls Scent of corn, bulerías, a gentlelifting of motherly skirts

A baby cries, an old lady moansa fat man rips his shirt

They sing here of Trianathey sing of Triana here

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I walk out into three am streets amid echoes of the wild ancestor Smell of corn waning moon

16

Lament of the Jews of Jérez

Jews in the flamesGypsies in the hills

Lovers on their backsFlotsam in the river

Plazas full of spectatorsBlood oranges in the scent

Jews on the racksMoors on the run

Lovers out of loveRivers of death

Grapes on the vineSherry in the casks

Lovers in the riverFires in their loins

One last prayer Murmured to God

Jews in the plazasBurning in the flames

Gypsies in the hillsRotting in the chalk

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Scent of Úbeda

The green Plates broke

And the blue oneWith the sort-of star of David in the middle

In less than two monthsIt will be more than two years

Last year I wrote so many poemsI had no time to get drunk

I smelled the lemonsThe way I hadn’t

Juan de la CruzPerhaps contemplating

His converso past died hereThe kilns are Moorish

I want to trackAnimals again

You run out of musicWhen you are not singing

18

Cante Jondo (Deep Song)

In southern Spain before the CrusadesWe used to sit under ancient olive treesNext to the Guadalquivir where it sweeps around the bendIn Granada. That was some town in those days.The park facing the amphitheatre was homeTo half the species of Mediterranean fruit.The hill north of the Alcázar shelteredHundreds of blue-black antelope importedFrom the central rift in Africa, and during Santa SemanaChristians who hadn’t run away sat downWith Jews and Muslims and played silly Egyptian card games.Then came a change. First Samuel the Prince died,Then Ibn Gabirol; Halevi went away; Maimonides followed,And so on. Those who remainedBegan to sing of war. Jewish courtiers increasedTheir donations to the Talmud schools but decreasedThe number of poems they wrote For the fawns who plied them with spirits. The direction Of the evening breeze changed as well so thatThe sweltering August nights no longer offered relief from the Late-evening burning sun. Little Jewish boysBegan to disappear after the Torah reading and not because,As some said, Gironese Kabbalists had kidnapped themTo meet the insatiable needs of the Christian disputants at Tortosa.Mornings, too, began to change. Whereas Breakfasts always had ended with strong, bitter coffee And saffron-flavored pistachio pastries rolled in thin-layered crusts,Housewives now began serving old tea, savedFrom the last infestation of western European murderers, and hard biscuitsRolled at the last minute in pathetic small grains of rat-chewed brown sugar.The Holy Land lost its direction. When we prayed We no longer faced southeast but began to turn Increasingly every which way, evenInto the realm of Alfonso the So-Called Wise. Soon we knew what had happened in The ancient world didn’t matter. Translators sank their teeth into Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, making a royal mess of grandPhilosophies. Those same teeth began to rotFrom the dizziness of attempts to reconcile the ancient learning, Contemporaneous with many gods, with the Other learning, Inspired by the One. Now no one Paid any attention to any of it, turning insteadTo the feverish promises of false prophets and messiahs. It wasn’t just the lousy bread, or the migrations,

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Idols, or transmutation of gold into silverToward the inevitable rock-bottom world of lead,Nor was it the disappearance of the poets— They had continued to leave, like so many spiders leavingWebs in decaying, crumbling buildings,Their alphabetically acrostic poems everywhere, so that you couldn’t pray One phrase in any service without staring through the bright blacknessOf their words like so many ants crawling upon the dung heap people Began to think was some sort of genizah. Philosophers decayed too;The stench grew revolting. We stopped drinking wine—it wasTotally foul—so instead of celebrating God we threw ourselvesAt Him in the incantations of Abulafia Chanting yod hey vav hey—the letters in the tetragrammaton—In the six directions, Then joining Moses de León in the search for the mysticalBody of God, as if God has a body,Physical or sefirotically metaphysical. Our familiesBegan disintegrating, and rather than repairingThe universe with mnemonic blessings and mumblings we began To pray for its dissolution. I can tell you this Because as we saw the end approach, like a rotting behemoth from Genesis,Lurching toward us only this time restrained but barely by the gleeful toothless priests And canons swinging their Jewish wine bottles as their minions were burying tens, then Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of alive pale young boys and girls. It was Then that nothing stayed together, and in a flash it was over, Bodies in flames, teeth melting in skulls, sexual organs popping Then exploding, nipples shooting into the air like miniature Chinese rockets, eyeballs Bursting, bloodying bystanders’ faces, some say actually penetrating The cracks in the cobblestones that travelers and locals alike would walk on for hundreds Of years. But I wouldn’t know. It’s just That upon returning to this land where the three streams of molten metal fused into a Single golden river, the Guadalquivir, I know that in the cries of the cante jondo, The deep song, in the moss growing up the banks, in the fat of the hanging hamsIn every shop and tapas bar, in the mites on the scalps of the pretty señoritas and their Haggard ugly young mothers, in the cast-iron gates running up the hill across From the Alhambra, we could sometimes see, hear,And smell the past as if it were present down to the last detail, Including I swear the saffron flavoring of the pastries.And so I give a toast, le chaim, in the Bodega González Byass, with the finest, Darkest, sweetest, strongest oloroso I can afford before going to the market For my daily fix of blood oranges before strolling down to that same Guadalquivir To witness the flow of small boats, plastic bottles, and dead flowers Slipping downstream to the Mediterranean.

20

Sensing Souls in Toledo

City of generationsCalling through the brutal heat

I pace every inchOf your restored synagogue

Sensing soulsHymns still singing

Who still wants to drink The blood of grapes?

The moon like a Hebrew letter writes Golden tints on an aurora

Send to my beloved An alas on the wind

A dusty path weaves among Oak and cork trees

Remorselessly Dry grass pig pens

By dark moonlight Shades of children

These streets have our Names statues

El Greco stares lost Over the city of generations

DNA remembersNeeds to be reminded

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Scolding Alfonso the So-Called Wise King of Toledo

You are kingAnd called wise

You write songs to the virgin MaryAnd discuss philosophy

With Jews and MuslimsYet in the end

You are like all the rest of them:You do not revere your Mary

Nor the sayings of your SaviorYou are a hollow man

Hypocrite at heart Poseur

Did you never wonderBeyond your dilettantish ways

And in your great wisdom see The impoverished legacy of a kingdom

Ruled by misery And miserable dark-age men

In your once-great City of generations?

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I Remember Ancient Graves

poets in their gravesghosts in the gardens

kabbalists in the riversfleeing unholy fires

philosophers in the valleysseeking higher ground

rabbis in the woodspreaching with the birds

moses ibn ezrawriting about death again and again

ancient gravesforgotten in the fields

spaniards in their hovelsheads in the sand

jews on the racksstretching to the heavens

marranos in the styseking out a meal

ghosts in the gardenspoets in their graves

ghosts in gardensthat flower in the night

moses ibn ezra in his gravepenitential poet

moses ibn ezrajeweler to the poets

moses ibn ezrafinally remembered in toledo

ghost in a garden of stones

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Yehudah Halevi’s Lament

For many hundreds of yearsMy poems gave hopeExpressed a longingFor embers grown coldFor a presence now absentFor something no longer here

How shall I describe that emptiness?It is like tohu and bohuHollowness surrounded by more hollownessVoid awaiting fullnessSadness beyond descriptionA vast aravah of desolation

Over the years I have searched for YouWith or without formFor a glimpse of Your glorious radianceA mere taste sweeter Than date honey

Long ago I wrote something I still feel:

High place of great beautyRadiant bliss of everything that isI want to be where You are In the abode of pure awarenessIn Your worldEven alas where You were

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The Fado of Bonastruc ça Porta

In the disputationI was forced to prove

The ancient rabbis did not believeJesus was the messiah

I longed to fail but could notAnd was forced to flee for my life

You today know nothingOf this sort of thing

Of the treacherous hard travel To the promised land from which there was no return

I longed for my family and for the wise Company of kabbalists, poets, and statesmen

You told me that in your first hourIn Girona you felt the stab of pain

A heart attack That takes the breath away

I longed for eternal lifeFor the Jews who stayed through the dark fires Today a beautiful museumBears my name

Signs identifyThe Jewish quarter

I longed for the little archesOver the winding cobblestone streets Even after More than seven hundred years

I am not sure I could stand the pain

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I longed for the riverAlong whose sides colorful houses stood

Tell my descendantsThat although I am doing well

And am happy For my beautiful Girona

I still long For the lush surrounding hills

And think of the cemetery Where my ancestors were buried

I long from the other sideLong to return

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Besalú

Fifteen minutesUntil the mikveh closes

Hurry down stairsTo the shallow ritual bath

Where does the waterCome from?

Jews were here, everywhere,Then gone

From rain?Underground?

We know what happened To the Jews

Or do we? After returningThe key I cannot find my bus

Was I going to Girona?What was my name?

This is what happensWhen you don’t take notes

I know the Jews did not ascendBut still do not know

The mikveh’s sourceBucket brigade?

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Tarazona

city without the romanceof Granada

confused with Tarragonain nothing but name

another modern Spanish cityeasy to get to

with a Jewish pasthard to find

sure there are signsdescribing the hanging houses

piles of rubblethat might have been cobblers’ shops

sure there are vacant lotsthat might have hosted fruit markets

notches on doorsmight mean something too

and streets with names that sound Jewish

and what aboutthe hanging homes

tall and narrow on cliffs along streets built like terraces

why did Jews inhabit themliving like swallows

on the tall sidesof cliffs?

then again why about most anything here?

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Fado for Zaragoza

It’s autumn in ZaragozaLeaves are turning and ready to fallOver everything hangs a pallThere are no more poets

I wander your dark morning streetsListening for the deep-song musicBut all I hear are excusesFor poetry from people feigning sleep

The students are up all nightBut what do they produce? Wrapped in rhymes that seduceOnly words that are slight

The old Jewish market is goneAll traces hidden in the winding alleysThe old Jewish poets had to fleeBefore their hearts broke with the destruction of their songs

I mourn for them, for their thousands of versesScattered throughout this sad, sad landLost to a people whose hatred had grown out of handWhipped to a frenzy by ungodly priests in ungodly churches

Do not feel sorry this country fell into ruinOr for the disappearance of spring that could have been eternalThe torture was truly infernalThe Spaniards brought it upon themselves later if not sooner

Still I long for the love that could have beenFor poems and songs that could have soundedLike bright bells forged in a supernal foundry Enchantment in place of sin

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The Ghost of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra Returns to Spain

I have left behindmy threadbare garmentand write in the idiomof your day.

The stars seem to have movedinto a better configuration;astrology is still in fashion, I see,and the wisdom of Spain I spread.

I look out the windowon the high-speed train from Zaragozato Tudela and marvel at the landscape of grape vinesso like what was here nearly a thousand years ago.

They call me polymath, poet, rabbi, philosopher, astrologer, mathematician, traveling teacher, the first modern biblical scholar— But let’s pause a moment at this whistle stop:

I said if the Bible says pigs can flythis is meant to be read metaphorically:the Bible does not contradictreality.

Similarly since a blind man who blinds a sighted man cannot be punishedby blinding him in return, so too is an eyefor an eye not meant to be read literally.

If you want to call this modernor even scholarly, be my guest:to me it’s just common senseand not so original.

Of course I’m glad some of youstill remember me in your most literal of times,but in truth I’m just another sad ghostfrom another sad time.

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God Questions Abraham Abulafia, Prophet of Kabbalah

Abraham, Abraham,who are you who is chanting?

Your lowly servant O God in heaven.

Abraham, Abraham,what are you chanting?

Your hundred namesO God in heaven.

Abraham, Abraham,why are you chanting?

To become one with youO God in heaven.

Abraham, Abraham,when are you chanting?

All day and all nightO God in heaven.

Abraham, Abraham,how are you chanting?

Letter by letter in the six directionsO God in heaven.

Abraham, Abraham,where are you chanting?

Wherever I amO God in heaven.

Your lowly servantYour hundred namesTo become one with youAll day and all nightLetter by letterWherever I am

O God in heaven, O God in heaven

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Search for Survivors

1

Walk lonely predawn León streetsCamera in one hand

Jews of Moslem Spain In other

Search for Calle MisercordiaWhere La Sinagoga Mayor once stood

Pass Plaza San MartinOnce a market

Streets of lignite artisansSilversmiths and butchers

Finally find misery street But synagogue? Nada

Wind past churches To medieval wall

Then place of formerCemetery

Not one trace Of what I want

Once again lungs implodeIn disappointment

StopStudy map again

Perhaps this isWrong place

Sunlight warmsCobblestone paths tracing wall

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2

Today I found my eponymous streetAlongside a complex of dwellings:

Calle Moshé de LeónSomeone remembered me

I contemplate the traffic circleThe vacant lots

Cross the bridge, lookFor the museum of the three faiths

Watch young women carrying packsWalk over the scallop shells on their way

To the center of town I walkThe other way

In this city I either was bornOr grew up. I forget the details

3

In the cathedralI admire the famous stained-glass windows

Some are tall verticalsOthers circular

I am awed like othersIn this city whose Jewish quarter

I have just wanderedWhose museums I have entered

Whose signs I have readWhose food I have eaten

I know there is a historyWas a history

Mallarmé says cut endingsBut no end is in sight

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4

Search not For the Jewish history of this place

But the place in you of this Jewish historyIn these dwellings are many souls

Walk the street of the silversmithsThe street of silver

Search all you want for vibrationsFrom the past

Wonder who I was and whereI drew my inspiration

Whether I was born here or somewhere elseI don’t know myself

Connect the dots from Guadalajara to León To Ávila

Hunt even if you wish in the teachingsOf St Teresa and St John of the Cross

But always return to yourself in all thisRemember who you are

Read zachar—remember—For zohar—splendor

In your quest for who I wasWho I am since all I can do myself

Is remember the splendor of that timeThe pinpoint radiance everywhere

Like stars and planets in the darkest of skiesSo close you could reach up and touch them

Or pluck them and reassemble themInto a cosmos here below

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Lament of the Jews of Pamplona

once we were closer than man and wife

now i run for my lifelike the bulls in the streets

the sun an obscuredred disk

in the meandering maze of alleyways in the old quartermy poor mother struggles to find her way

her clothes in tattersa strange smell floating over

the city our family lived in a thousand years from which

we were thenbanished

till seas and mountains swallowed us

into final disappearanceour descendants sipping sherry

kill their poets then argue whether to exhume them

meanwhile we continue to wander

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Stumbling Upon Biblioteca Abraham Zacut

Just as I was thinking yesSalamanca is a beautiful but cold city

Its red sandstone buildings etchedwith distinctive red street names

Its winding streets full of out-of-work students

And memorials to Fray Luis—martyr, second-rate poet,descendant of Jews, rabid Jew hater;

To Cervantes, pride of the crypto-Jews;and Unamuno, rebel with a cause

I stumbled upon the university librarynamed after Rabbi Abraham Zacuto

Booted from Spain into Portugal, where the king immediately adopted him

Into the rest of history as the cartographer, geographer, and astronomer

Who made possible the entire flourishing of Portugal for the next three hundred years

Columbus may have discovered the new worldbut without Zacuto there would have been no new world to discover

Here’s to Don Abraham Zacuto, then, whom, in a welcome but familiar move,

The Spaniards have claimed—or perhaps reclaimed— as one of their own

36

Garden in Ávila: A Fado by Moses de León

A small pedestal shiny as a starSays the garden you’re inIs the garden of Moses de LeónAnd in Spanish quotes the Zohar

There are times

Here in my garden of longingWhere birds are no longer singingThe grass is uncutAnd all you can hear are the convent bells ringing

when the souls in the garden

The gate of bad luck Is just over thereOn the edge of the old Jewish quarterNext to the square

rise and reach the gate of heaven

Here where the brethren walkDiscussing fine points of TorahWe sometimes look up at the Ávila wallsBut all we can see are the heavenly halls

The sky itself surrounds the garden three times

Beyond and below in the dark scary forestPigs run wild with their bristles aquiverWhile in and alongside the cold narrow riverFrogs croak in an infinite chorus

accompanied by a harmonious sound

I said the garden is a place of earthly delightWhere God can appear throughout the nightEach star a soul from the next worldEach sight a face aglow with millions of pearls

37

The souls peer

I already imagine myself a travelerTranscending time at a pace oh so slowWith nothing to reap, nothing to sowWith nothing to show and nowhere to go

to admire the burning splendor of the fire and clouds of smoke

Although I am afraid of what I will findWhen I climb the hill I long to return to the splendor stillOf my overgrown, peaceful little garden in time

before which they kneel reverently

38

The Burning Light

what if Juan de la Cruz and Teresa de Jesús were secret lovers

if the long dark night of the soul was conceivedin his longing for her and her flowering breasts

and his inspiration camenot from the Song of Songs

or from the troubadours but insteadfrom his ecstatic love for her

what if his most beautiful poemabout the flames of love was written to her

if his androgynous description of lovers reflected how much she was part of him

and when he looked in his mirrorhe saw his beloved, and his beloved was her

what if they discussednot spiritual and Carmelite matters

but their shared converso heritageand the Book of Radiance

written near Ávilanearly three hundred years earlier

what if when he was levitating it was out of joy at seeing her

gazing at him through the bars of her cell window

if Cupid was the angel who shot the arrow into Teresa’s heart

and her suffering that followedwas not for Jesus but for Juan de la Cruz

39

what if a key passed down through generationswas the key to his cell, not hers

if she founded the Carmelite sect of the shoeless nunsso she could justify walking barefoot into his room at night

if the chair we see today was one he sat inwith Teresa on his lap

and his chalice was used for a mystical weddingor maybe just to share a glass of wine

what if his prison cell and her interior castle were the same place

where together they climbed ever higher toward final union

if the square of blinding white light I saw in front of the Convento de los Carmelitas Descalzos

was a remnant of the light of their love that shines at that time on that day every year

what if after he died in Úbeda in the South she was the one who had his body taken

to bury in Segovia so she could be near him but not too near, for fear her nuns

at the Monasterio de la Encarnación in Ávilawould see the burning light

what if after she died someone moved himfrom his crypt to the larger sepulcher

not for his glorification but so their bonescould mingle for eternity

40

what if she created the recipe for yemas to remind him of her sweetness

or if instead the recipe was his to remind her of him

what if the child enfolded in her cape

is not reallythe baby Jesus

what if

41

Three Secrets

From the painting in my sanctuaryI see you staring at me in my beautiful habit.For a few moments we are in silenceBefore a horde of boorish French tourists descends.

I envy your freedom to be Jewish.

I do feel within me stillThe aura of my ancestors.It was not that long ago after all.How could I forget?

What should I do?

I have hidden my love For Juan de la Cruz Though he has hidden his For me less well.

Write what you wantAs long as it is the truth.

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And Now a Haiku

I am embarrassed.Where did he get that ideaAbout the burning breasts!

43

Levitating in the Presence of Teresa de Jesús

I felt so lightI could not help rising to be closer to God.

Left behindwas the earthly bodyof Juan de la Cruz.

I had no heavy thoughts,had let go the dark heavinessfelt while in prison.

I had forgiven everyone,forgotten the hurts and miseries of the past.

My body retained its formbut in truth was pure light, and being pure lightwas light as well.

I contemplated the auto-da-féwas consumed by the same firebecame the spaces between atoms.

I became pure form, no, not became,rather, realized my nature as pure formlike the flame on a candle

Weightless but aglow, what Teresa saw through the bars of her cell in her convent in Ávila.

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Meeting in the Heavenly Garden

St Teresa and Moses de León meetIn the Heavenly Garden

Did she knowHe lived in Ávila almost

Three hundred years beforeOr that she would be born there

Three hundred years afterHe died

In the same neighborhoodNear the Gate of Bad Luck?

The Book of Radiance treatsEvery aspect of existence

As an aspect of GodAnd every aspect of God

As if He were a human being At the same time asserting

That God cannot be named, Described, or otherwise known

The Interior Castle describesA vision of the mansions

One needs to enterTo achieve union with God

In a spiritual marriageOf lower with upper

To bring the devoteeInto the continuous radiance of Jesus

45

Seven emanationsSeven mansions

Who can sayWhether she was influenced by him

Or whether our reading of himIs influenced by her

Since the souls in the garden long agoRose and reached the gate of heaven

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Confession

I hereby confess that knowingly in defiance of the Church I willfully, knowingly, gleefully ordered my nuns to remove their shoes because we all were growing fat off the labors of the peasants; in order to honor the poor, who cannot afford shoes; to mimic the suffering of Jesuswhen he was bound to the pillar; and in remembrance of the Jews who made and fixed the shoes of the rich and then as New Christians like my ancestors were burned at the stake after watching the priests bury their children alive in cement. I also freely admit that the Interior Castle is modeled after the Book of Radiance, that Rabbi Moses de León knew my ancestors, that to them only he entrusted his secret, that when I was a young girl I had a hiding place in the old Jewish quarter, and that my family lit candles when I was growing up.

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The Yemas of St Teresa of Ávila

I stir together a confection For You

Each yolk reminds of the sun seen through The Gate of Bad Luck in the old Jewish quarter

The sugar of the sweetness of my abuelaMaking candles in her tiny kitchen

The dry flour of the sands of the Holy LandNumerous as stars in the universe

The water of the traditionsThat once held a people together

The yeast of the prayersThat rose to the heavens

The thick-skinned lemons we grewTo protect the world from our sourness

The cinnamon of the faraway landsOur ancestors transported through the Holy Land

And the yemas of the totality of a nationThat depends one tribe upon another to achieve greatness in memory

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Souvenir of Segovia

From the moment you evicted usFrom our white home in the hills of SegoviaI knew I would never love again.

Strange rites consumed us.Strange men read the shapes of our foreheads.A new moon struggled into the heavens.

Only the faint lingering scent of orange blossomsRemains in the air, undisturbedBy the intervening years of history.

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Lament of the Saint of Segovia

Died in ÚbedaBuried in Segovia

Here the vistas are grandThe river winds through

A small limestone canyonBelow the Jewish cemetery

My monastery is on the pathWhere world pilgrims visit my tomb

And contemplate the completeness Of life lived in the shadow of the alcázar

At the end of the aqueduct that isThe signature vista of this city

Here I could contemplateWhat I could not in the south

In the darkness that comes earlyEven in summer and ends late

Reminding of smoke and ashesThe scent is not blood oranges

Just blood and the flowers Are not blossoms

Just petaled pools spreadingAcross the narrowing landscape

Do I remember my ancestors?The answer is no

Was I aware of the long history of JewsIn Segovia before my body arrived

I was notNor was I aware

Of the Jewish mysticsWhose lives were lived in nearby Ávila

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Was something in the airIn these twin sky cities

Conducive to the mystical questI cannot answer but must trust

Instead to the thoughts And dreams of travelers

Who in the future Will come here to resurrect

What’s left of the dry Bones in the field

Open vistasEnclosing walls

Cool summer nightsCold winter nights

The river cuts awayThe ancient limestone

It is indeed the dark night of the soul When we cannot remember

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The Testimony of Don Fernando Perez Coronel,Formerly Don Abraham Senior of Segovia

Isabella herself converted mein the courtyard of my beautiful homebarely half of which survivesto this day. There is still a little well in the courtyard,

A bedecked second story and a view of the Jewish cemetery across the ravine—What more could I have asked for?

You who accuse me of slipshod scholarship,claiming I wasn’t a real rabbi, may be right on one levelbut wrong on a deeper one.

If we left, we lost everything; if we stayed, we lost everything.Better to suffer with money than without. Better to be unhappyand rich than unhappy and poor.

Sure, my Torah learning was weak, my sermons lightweight, my knowledge of life’s mysteries thin, but who better to understand the superficial futility of a time of duress?

Though if you preferTo call me a traitor to real wisdom, a justifier, go right ahead:I supported my community and the crown, beforeand after, when I was a Jew on the outside and whenI was a Jew only on the inside.

Yes, I was afraid for my life, to lose everything, to leave behind everything good in Sefarad, runfrom country to country risking life and limbor stay and save the remnants of my community

In small secret ways. Do you think I was a fool? If you save your skin, you save your skin, no ifs, ands, or buts.After all, God is God, and the Kabbalistswere no better than the Trinitarians, what with their ten faces of the Godhead, male and female parts, and endless divisions of oneness.

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Each night I lay in bed grateful for my decision and look out at the cemetery across from the slaughterhouse and asked myself who in all the world except perhaps the One had a better view of Jewish history

The moon is partial tonight, looking like a certain Hebrew letteron its back. Isabel and Ferdinand, far away, continued to plotthe destruction of their empire, Jew by Jew, gypsy by gypsy,morisco by morisco, mozarab by mozarab, heretic by heretic.The air around here always stank.

It was a despicable odor, reminding everyone that we all,whatever our blood, lived in a cesspool of ignorance and arrogance,illogic and fraud, surely the work of the Christian devil.

Imagine yourself in my timeBefore judging any Jew in your time or in any otherFor you do not know how you would actor what you would believe were you to find yourselfin Segovia in 1492.

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Yehudah Halevi Explains Why He Left the Good Things Sefarad

In Tudela de Navarre at sunrise there isFrom the top of the hill

A view of the shiny, glassy,Sparkling surface of the Rio Ebro

As the water slowly moves downstreamAnd when I walk along this and other Spanish rivers

By night toward my precious Jewish quartersMy head goes into the clouds

Where the constellationsFormed by the hand of God

Swirl in their wondrous patternsAnd the moon in the shape of the Hebrew letter yod

Casts a blue-white lightOnto verdant orchards of fig trees, pears, oranges, and plums

Soon the greatest Jew since Moses will ignore the KuzariAnd my whole endeavor of poetry

Favoring medicine insteadWhich is only my livelihood.

Friends are dying or leavingAnd daily I am grieving.

The plazas are deserts. Although by day they swarmAt night their lonely beggars are the only forms.

I have stopped noticing the year-round processions of boatsCeased bantering with the priests

Day by day forming a plan To join my ancestors in the Holy Land. For even though it too is probably a desert, sheltering fears,I will take my chances and risk the tears.

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In a dream I sawIn a corner of Tudela

A plaza with my name And on a wall

Two short stanzas From a poem

Well into the future Travelers will come

To search for my traces And those of Benjamin the Traveler

Abraham Ibn Ezra the polymathIbn Gabirol the mystic philosopher-poet

And many othersWho settled there

The land of Israel is my people’s homeland; Only there can our aspirations be fulfilled

Among the buried footsteps, spice routes, bones lying well Preserved in dust, awaiting resurrection from both heaven and hell

The ancient Moses will greet me Arms outstretched, listen to my poems, and discuss philosophy.

One day flowers will bloom again in sandTurning the desert into a promised land.

I will be sad to leave those I knowBut now I have to go.

You dig and dig a well If you are thirsty, even if it’s all the way to hell.

When I speak of the good things of Sefarad I do not mean to slight its beauty or its sod.

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It is not As with Jacob

Who did not know That God was in the place

Where he sleptIt is that God is in the place

Where I want To lay my head

Where instead of soft Beds and fine rich soil

There are rocks And sand and barren earth

Waiting for rain That I know will come one day

Farther in the future it will be said I was born not in Tudela but Toledo instead.

No matter: jinxed by MaimonidesFew will read my poetry or philosophy.

It also will be debatedWhether I ever reached the Holy Land

And whether I was trampled by a camel Or a horse or just died in Cairo in a hovel.

No matter: I know that in Toledo at sunrise there isFrom the top of the hill through the sometime mist

A view of the shiny, glassy, sparkling surface Of the Rio Tagus

And although all is wonderful Do you now understand why I have to leave?

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The Return of Samuel the Prince

Mangia! I walked along the street of sighs,Crossed in front of Our Lady of Flours,A bakery of no small renown, famousFor its Brazilian-style cookies called O-Rios, sandwichedBetween two churches and a synagogue,And turned in to the biggest Korean marketIn our medieval, sad little town, for the heartIs a lonely hunter, even if Brazil is far away. What a reliefFrom poetry that sways like a drunkLeft behind during the parting of the Red SeaTo find row upon row of spicy pickled fresh cabbage,Thready bean spouts, shredded bright-green seaweeds, and julienned white radishes Looking for all this world like orphans from Gabirolean spheres,Strangers in a strange land, lost like me In the space time forgot, in a time to be spaced. There also were rows upon rows of sweets and salads,Glutinous rices, frozen dumplings, fish cakes,Taro and lotus roots, bok choy, tofu hardAnd tofu soft, fried and baked, along with sliced beef,Diced beef, shredded and dried beef. I crossedThrough the sushi souk where the sushi chefs sliceThe raw tuna and salmon and the sakis serve sake,Where ofers offer sloughers from heady coffers. Stunned,Slain by sideward glances from the wine-pouring slayers of sayers,I moved more quickly than the lowliest package of sushiLeft over from a Saturday-night-fever party tray.But I digress in my lectionary of exoticOrnamental foods, having forgotten, like a courtier the morning after, That dietary customs are not random, as it is said:“You shall not eat of an animal that was torn in the field.” And so I left, turned right Onto the street of sighs and walkedAway from the biggest Korean market in our sadLittle town past Our Lady of the Flours Along the sighing streets. Mangia!

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