Uncle Yosele, may you rest peacefully
outside Tel Aviv in the makeshift hospital
where cousin Bati watches over you.
She told me how you hid under a car
for two days without water,
how you saw your son Ron massacred
holding the hand of his daughter, Sarah.
Bati said you were shaking when they found you,
your 87-year-old body, always so thin,
shaking and crying for ha yeladim, ha yeladim
you helped raise on Kibbutz Be’eri
where you met your bride,
my mother’s sister Devorah, who died
last year. Oh, Yosele, how I remember
picking oranges with you, pitting avocadoes
on our visits to Israel when I was a child.
You showed me your work at the printing
press, gave me a tour of the land.
We shared one bottle of water.
And here is where our children learn and play.
And here is where I was married, beneath this tree.
A picture of you and I, in blonde pigtails, walking hand
in hand through the orange grove that Ron took
with the Nikon my mother Rachel brought him.
Your precious boy shot dead by terrorists,
your granddaughter in the room next to yours,
her body blanketed with shrapnel, Oh Yosele,
dear Uncle, the last left of your generation,
dear gentle printer, who always smelled
of ink and oranges, holy gentle scents.
I can’t stop crying, as we are divided.
Let the clouds carry my message.
I am weeping here in the distant ruins.
The place doesn’t look the same on the news.
It is not the place you came to.
