The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.

At Night in Jerusalem

I touch your wound
and know that the night is long.
Sitting beside you in the hospital
by the pockmarked walls of the Old City,
I keep watch for the first sign of dawn.

The bus was taking us
to the other side of the city,
to the onion domes of the church of gentleness,
to the arched mosque of kindness,
to the ark of the synagogue of peace.

Yet we could not escape
from this circuitous route of suffering.
It took us through all of the city’s neighborhoods,
east and west, north and south. And I kept boarding
and unboarding the bus like the angels of Jacob’s ladder
but not ever reaching top or bottom.

When I awake from my dream,
I stir beside you. It has grown lighter outside.
A man— is it me or am I still dreaming?—
is walking towards the Old City,
where he will lean against the Wailing Wall
and pray for his friend,
who was wounded in the bombing of a bus
and whose hand reaches out
to be comforted.

Potato Kugel for Rosh HaShannah
                                                                                                                                            for my mother

I place the yellowed recipe—
the one with her rounded letters
and the address of my childhood home—
nearby on the kitchen counter, gather six potatoes,
an onion, a carrot, two eggs, oil, flour,
salt and pepper.

And then begin to grate
the potatoes into a large glass bowl.
Occasionally, I glance at her familiar handwriting
to make sure I’m doing it right.

Preheat the oven, grease a 10” pan
and heat it. Meanwhile, I grate the onion
and carrot, pour the oil, measure the flour,
stir and mix in the other ingredients.

And while the potato kugel bakes,
I think of her whose life was measured
and meted out in a limited
quantity of days.

Rick Black is an award-winning book artist and poet. His poetry collection, Star of David, won an award for contemporary Jewish writing and was named one of the best poetry books in 2013. His haiku collection, Peace and War: A Collection of Haiku from Israel, has been called “a prayer for peace.” Other poems and translations have appeared in The Atlanta Review, Midstream, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Frogpond, Cricket, RawNervz, Blithe Spirit, Still, and other journals.

Featured image in this post: Hanukkah dishes, Ms Jones from California, USA, creative commons via wikimedia commons.