What can a yellow glove mean in a world of cars and
governments?
I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don't
kiss the squirrel before you bury him, suck candy, pop balloons,
drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one
Christmas, I heard it trailing me. Don't lose the yellow gloves.
I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a
stream -- the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would
sail boats and roll into ditches -- I let a glove go. Into the stream,
sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I
walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn't
have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that
was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother's
eyes had tears they had not cried yet. I didn't want to be the one to
make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks,
lining up donkeys in windowsills, to be good, a promise made to the
roaches who scouted my closet at night, if you don't get in my bed, I
will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.
The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang
and drew and fattened the cat. Don't scream, don't lie, don't
cheat, don't fight -- you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could
show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show
how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how
to drift and change -- next June I was stirring the stream like
a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he'd only
hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped
on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.
Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash
it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that
world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street.
Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and
gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what
can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?
Part of the difference between floating and going down.
Found in Everything Comes Next, Collected and New Poems, 2020
- There's another "essay", four pages long, later in the book entitled, "Museum." I love it! I think it's too long to type here, though. So glad I own the book, but I know I'd read it more if it were on my blog...Maybe I'll type it in another day.
- "The Traveling Onion" (found elsewhere on this blog and one of my favorite poems) is included in this collection. YAY!
The following two poems come from the middle/second section of the book entitled, "THE HOLY LAND THAT ISN'T"
Before You Can
My Jewish friends are kind and gentle.
Not one of them would harm another person
even if they didn't know that person.
My Arab friends are kind and gentle.
Not one of them would harm another person
even if they didn't know that person.
They might press you to drink 45 small cups
of coffee or tea, but that would be all.
My Jewish friends have never taken my house,
my land, herded me into a cell, tortured me,
cut down my tree, never once.
My Arab friends have never built a bomb.
We respect each other as equals.
We look somewhat alike.
We laugh similarly.
We have never said the other should not exist.
So where is the problem exactly?
Let's be specific. Who and where and what
is the problem exactly? You have to know
before you can fix it.
Everything in Our World Did Not Seem to Fit
Once they started invading us, taking our houses
and trees, drawing lines, pushing us into tiny places.
It wasn't a bargain or deal or even a real war.
To this day they pretend it was.
Bu it was something else.
We were sorry what happened to them but
we had nothing to do with it.
You don't think what a little plot of land means
till someone takes it and you can't go back.
Your feet still want to walk there.
Now you are drifting worse
than homeless dust, very lost feeling.
I cried even to think of our hallway,
cool stone passage inside the door.
Nothing would fit for year.
They came with guns, uniforms, declarations.
Life magazine said,
"It was surprising to find some Arabs still in their houses."
Surprising? Where else would we be?
Up on the hillsides?
Conversing with mint and sheep, digging in dirt?
Why was someone else's need for a home
greater than our own need for our own homes
we were already living in? No one has ever been able
to explain this sufficiently. But they find
a lot of other things to talk about.
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