Chapter 6 with my father
Iara:
While I found new words / my father is looking for familiar /
old words / a house, a cucumber, his granddaughter's name, who seemed to be
escaping from a hole in his pocket. / Maybe the words I found are the words
that he lost
Ze'ev:
While I find new words
My father is looking for old ones:
House, cucumber, granddaughter's name
Escape from a hole in his pocket
Maybe the words I found
Are the words he lost
Iara:
My father is in a hospital, really confused / I'm far away,
just hope he does not lose consciousness / That he'll know who I am, when I
come back. / In India / My head was empty of thoughts / And my father / Who
lacks words / Who confuses those he knows / Doesn't know if it is today or
yesterday / waiting for me to return
Ze'ev:
Why was your mind empty of thoughts?
Iara:
In India, I learned how good it is to be lazy / to leave the
words / and to my father / who is far away from me / many words have escaped /
but he still remembers my name/ And he's waiting for me
Ze'ev:
My father is in the hospital
Losing more and more words
As the days pass
When I get back from India
Will he know my name?
Iara:
Everything looks neat and clean, but the suffering and the
pain do not go away / My father cannot walk / He cannot explain his thoughts /
On white sheets / On a white bed / In a hospital room / His eyes are sad / What
are they looking for? Maybe the walls of his house / With Images and colors /
to return his powers / words, to explain his thoughts
glasses
Ze'ev:
White walls
White sheets
Everything here is so neat
Except for my father
Whose legs no longer carry him
His eyes search and search
For the words
That no longer connect with him
Iara:
Can you say that everything inside me is void? If I say that,
what is understood? That everything is dead or that everything is empty? Or is
it the same thing? The name of the flute (in Hebrew Chalil) points to the space
inside it? Space is empty, or can it be full? Window (in Hebrew Chalon) is from
the same root? Maybe even a dream (Chalom), which is a window to another world?
Can we talk about mental space? A space inside me or maybe in my soul / There
are no sounds in it / No stars / It is a quiet-space / Full of fear / That I
will lack my father
Ze'ev:
>Can you say that everything inside me is void? > No.
We say, "Everything inside me is hollow", or "I have
space".
>The Hebrew name of the flute points to the space inside
it? > Yes.
>Space is empty, or can it be filled?> The space in a
room is full of furniture.
>A window is from the same Hebrew root?> Yes.
>A dream that is a window to another world> This is the
beginning of a poem.
Can we talk about mental space? Yes.
In the space inside me
No sounds
No stars
Only silence
And the fear that
My father will miss me
Iara:
My father is like an autumn leaf / He holds the stem of his
life / With his remaining powers / Until when?
Ze'ev:
Leaf in the fall
Holding to the stem of his life
With the last of his strength
Until when?
Iara:
I sometimes ask myself why it's so important, or maybe it's
not important, but always touching, to think about the history of the people
and the symbols, or to see things that lead us to previous times, to think that
a synagogue has become a mosque ... Does it matter? The same question about
pride, what should we be proud of? Why look for differences?
Ze'ev:
When you see a yellow badge, it does something to you? When
you hear that a yellow badge was sold at an auction, does it bother you? When
an Israeli singer appears before the Pope with a large Star of David on his
neck, does that do anything to you? When Israel wins a sports medal and they
play Hatikva ...? The fact is that symbols are moving. What if you were forced
to walk around with a necklace with a cross?
Iara:
Now I am closer to thoughts of life and death. Every time I
meet Father, the joy of life is immediately linked to the pain of yearning, and
to this feeling of a void when one sees death. So, what does it really matter?
Everything passes, all of us in the same direction, to the dirt. What is
actually the difference between a cross and a Star of David? Maybe I would not
go around with a cross, but I have not walked around with a Star of David since
the age of 18. I just liked to walk around with my name written in Hebrew,
because no one knew what it was. It's not clear to me.
Ze'ev:
The Palestinians do not tolerate the Star of David because it
is a symbol of everything that is bad for them. They do not know that the Star
of David is a Muslim symbol no less than Jewish. Anyone who goes with a Star of
David in an area of Arabs runs a risk.
Iara:
I remembered something interesting now. I had a problem with
the tickets when I returned from India. At the end, I returned through Dubai.
For the first time in my life I was in an Arab country. In the plane, they spoke
Arabic. At the airport, places were reserved for Muslim prayers. I was glad.
But I was afraid they would know that I was Jewish, and that I was in Israel. I
sat with the iPad and started reading in Hebrew, and then I was afraid that
they would see that I was reading in Hebrew. It's hard for me to think or write
today. I dive into fear. Not the Star of David, not the cross - nothing
protects me, or my father. It's all fear.
Ze'ev:
Fear makes it hard
For me to think
Today
The Star of David
Does not protect me
Nor my father
Iara:
On the bed / in Sao Paulo Brazil / Opening an iPad / A window
opens / Like in a dream / The same Jerusalem that you now see with your eyes /I
see with my eyes
All these windows: The eyes, the iPad, the camera ... When I
see Jerusalem through the camera window I see it through other eyes that saw
it.
Ze'ev:
Anyone who sees a photograph sees it through the eyes of the
person who took it.
Iara:
I wait for the poem to come, and it does not come. I sit all
day long in a room without a window, in a hospital with my father ... The hours
pass and the head only becomes emptier. At least I have an iPad and Internet
... and a window ... you can rest a little in different landscapes. There's a
place in your imagination, maybe, when you're between an alert dream and your
imagination, where everything looks like a movie you're in, and not, that
sometimes gets scary, because it can drive you crazy, it's not reality, but
it's reality. That's what I call a different world. When you walk in the street
and look for a Star of David, and suddenly you are lost, because you did not
notice the road, only the walls and the windows ... When you enter the store,
and forget what you did there because there is a cat in front of colorful
threads, and it's becoming more important than the rest … This, in my opinion
is to be in another world. When you are in a hospital room, and from the iPad
you see films photographs and letters, and you do not remember any more where
you are and what happens there when you read a book ... In all these
opportunities, you go out from reality to what I call another world ... This is
what I try to tell. When in the morning I get up and open a window in a window
and another window through the computer ... and suddenly I carry myself to
another place. Like now, I write all this, forgetting that I have to hurry to
my father's house, take care of him, see him afraid of the death that walks
around him, be with him when he is angry at everything, and complains there is
no air and we see that there is … that nothing is good and that he pays too
much to reach the age of 90 ... He clings and clings to life, and angry,
because he had enough, but he is afraid ... it's all another world, so strange,
unusual ...
Ze'ev:
In a room without a window
In the hospital
With my father
Only the 'windows' on the 'net'
Lead me to get lost
With the click of a mouse
In the streets of my
Holy Jerusalem
Iara:
I remembered something: I do not have a mouse ... on the iPad
I press with my fingers. Left and right, increasing and decreasing, entering
the details of the pictures, all with two fingers. But it really does not
matter.
Ze'ev:
I changed: "with a click screen".
Iara:
My father leaves life / one drop in every day / and I part
from him / one drop in every day
Ze'ev:
Why "drop"?
Iara:
That's my feeling. Every day he goes less, eats less, talks
less, one drop in every day...
Ze'ev:
"Drop" in Hebrew slang, [Tipa], means "a
bit". The association is of water or of blood. In a poem, there's an equal
importance to every word, and it brings its own contexts. Maybe you did not
mean water, or blood, but it turns out that the poem, as you wrote it, means
that every day he loses a drop of water or blood, and you lose a drop of water
or blood.
Iara:
I did not mean the dripping of fluids ... but every day you
see that he loses something else and another something ... like a house that is
slowly being dismantled. Taking out a door and another door, then every day a
brick. And I'm parting from every little part he loses ... I thought of a drop
as a small part. You can also think of a puzzle or a Lego ...
Ze'ev:
The idea of this poem is too close to a popular song by
Chava Alberstein: "Every day I lose
a handsome guy in the street".
Iara:
I think of someone falling apart. Losing parts. This is not a
momentary meeting. So, I sit next to him and almost see, here, now the hand is
weaker, cannot hold a phone, and then he cannot walk more than a few steps, and
then he cannot eat anymore, because he does not have the strength to bite ...
and then not to talk either ... because of the drops, I realized that I really
did not know what departure I meant. Maybe from the voice, from the eyes that
are still seeing. What's left? Who sits there quiet? Where is my father really?
There is no more hug, no more kisses, no smiles, no conversations. He just sits
tired and sad. It's not a song. It's just an opportunity to remember, to say
good-bye, to look, to put inside me what will never be again, what was and is
not. I already miss him.
Iara:
Today in the hospital / I opened your window to my father /
who saw today's Jerusalem and 1948's
My father also asked me to read the poems to him. I read the
new ones, but not the ones about him. He particularly liked the poem on the
autumn leaf, and he did not know that the poem was talking about him.
Ze'ev:
It reminds me that my mother sometimes asks me to show her my
new photographs; - she also has very interesting reactions. Usually, she
regrets that I do not sell or even intend to sell them.
Iara:
Dad asked me what you were doing with your photographs. He
was very enthusiastic and excited. He loved the pictures of the Shrine of the
Book, the bike in the grass, the last chair, the dove that listened to the sea
... Thank you, we really had a wonderful hour, we forgot we were in the
hospital ...
Ze'ev:
I only post the photos online.
Iara:
I told him. But you could have thought of an exhibition, at
least ...
Iara:
I saw eyes today / Behind glasses / Sad and frightened /
Looking for answers / what is time? / Where is the end? / My eyes or my
father's eyes? / His eyes are my eyes / they will always be with me
Ze'ev:
How does one see that eyes are looking for answers?
Iara:
They don't see. I thought about that. I searched and found
him in my eyes.
When the IPad was off/ I saw on it / eyes behind glasses /
sad and scared / I looked closely and found / my father's eyes / in my eyes
Ze'ev:
Did you see your eyes, and they reminded you of your father's
eyes? Whose glasses?
Iara:
My father does not have glasses. They are mine. For a moment,
I looked as if there was a picture. As if I were not me. As if it were not my
eyes. They reminded me of my father's eyes. And only then did I realize that
they were my eyes, which I had received from him. I found him behind my glasses.
Ze'ev:
When the iPad screen was off
I saw on it, as in a mirror
Behind my glasses
The sad eyes of my father
Iara:
Little by little the sunlight returns colors / (red orange
yellow purple and all kinds of greens) / to the flowering garden / the sabiá
bird goes out to drink water / black coffee wake my body up / another day
begins at my father's house / and he finally fell asleep
It's all in my father's garden. There is a sabiá bird, who
always comes to drink water from the pool at the same time. When I saw it,
beautiful, large, orange and squeaky, I realized that everything was going on
as usual, that the world was still spinning, that the flowers were still
blooming, and that it would not change … My father came home. Like a baby, I
changed his diapers, put food in his mouth, put him in bed ... it's so strange.
It's also strange because it's a natural thing - I never imagined myself doing
it. And then I went out to his garden, which was beautiful and blooming,
tropical, and it was dawn ...
Ze'ev:
Slowly the sun returned the colors
To the garden -
Reds, yellows, purples, greens
The orange Sabiá bird came back
As always at the same time
To drink water from the pool
And the black Coffee returned my body
Another day began at my father's
house
Finally he fell asleep
Iara:
The cold of the winter came for a day or two. Hot tea sweater
and coat do not / And will not / warm
me up / The screams cool my soul / More than the cold outside
Ze'ev:
Who shouted?
Iara:
My father is going crazy ... Yesterday he screamed all day.
Perhaps out of fear, or just to shout, to release tension. He makes up crazy
stories for all kinds of nonsense, you cannot convince him, and then he shouts
and yells, tears your heart ... It was terrible! There's nothing to do, just
pity, give medicine to calm him down. He reminds me of the madhouse where I
started to be a doctor. I always felt sorry for those people who screamed out
of psychological suffering. But to see my father like this ... life does not
cease to surprise.
Ze'ev:
Comparing your father's shouts to the cold winter weakens
what you want to say.
Iara:
He was a good man, respected and familiar, whom everyone
loved. He knew everything about everything, and everyone came to hear from him
what he thought of every subject. And now he's like a baby, with diapers and
nonsense, and I feel so sorry, I love him so much. The eyes are so good,
pleading, and there is nothing to do. It's easier to write about the cold that
has come, about sweaters and coats.
Ze'ev:
All day
My father screams
Maybe he's scared
Maybe just to shout
A good man
Respectable
Loved by everyone
Freaking out
I feel so sorry for him
And I love him so much
It's easier to write
About the cold that has come
The sweaters and coats
And the tea
That does not warm me up
Iara:
A huge moon between clouds / Playing hide and seek / Light
coming and going / Like life / this sentence came to me, I do not know what to
do with it / Lost in the nights of time / are the words
The moon was really big yesterday and the day before. I stood
on the porch, and there was a cold wind, and there were many clouds. Every time
the moon appeared it was a surprise. Its light illuminated the sky, and it was
so beautiful. But immediately it would hide, and its light would go out. Then it
reappeared, half an hour later, somewhere else. I needed to look for it.
Ze'ev:
It was in the news. Yesterday was the day of the year when
the moon was closest to Earth.
Iara:
Yes, but I did not think we'd really feel it. It was
wonderful, like a miracle. I got drunk ... I even forgot that maybe my father
is the one who is lost in the nights of time ...
Ze'ev:
A huge moon between clouds
Played hide and seek with God
Its light came and got
Lost
Like my father
Iara:
Now I see only a short-term future / My mind is falling apart
/ Or is emptying / Or gets full of nonsense /I do not want to think about the
distant future / where I see myself with a serious illness / because that's
what I have as inheritance / maybe then everyone will speak in his own language
/ And everyone will understand / There will be a direct translation / Maybe we
will understand the language of the crazy people / This will also be translated
/ Now I wanted to understand my father
Ze'ev:
In the future, everyone
Will speak his own language
And everyone will understand
The language of the madmen
But now, I want to
To understand my father
Iara:
I sang him an old song In Hebrew / and in his eyes and smile
/ I found him / my father is still there
I really wanted to find my father / He is a strange person in
a familiar body / I told him stories / I asked him questions / I sang him songs
/ And he is not there yet / But where?
All yesterday he was looking for watches to see what time it
was. He said we were framing him, my sister and I, that we set all the watches
in the house earlier ... He has the strength, but he would not hold a spoon in
his hand or hold our hand. He has power but he only refers to himself ... The
world is only turning around him ... and we're all tired ... and very sad. He,
who has been a generous man, such as him it is hard to find. Who was
intelligent, clever ... where was he now? At least he is in poems, even in
memoirs. The one who would be forever. Perhaps he himself is more tired than
his body, fled, flied, only the body remained.
Ze'ev:
My father's body remained
But his generosity
Which was unprecedented
Died along with his cleverness
Now he's angry
And suspicious
The extra terrestrial
Iara:
And that's how life goes / ends like it started, only this
time we keep and care for him / sing him lullaby songs / the same songs he used
to sing to us.
Ze'ev:
I return to my father
The lullabies that he sang to me in
the beginning
The Changing of diapers
The feeding with a spoon
Great idea!
Iara:
There is already a book ... just about my father. It's
amazing that it all started with words that he lost. Maybe that's why I write.
Now I also hold him in his hands, and in the last few days he has not been able
to stand or walk. And he's heavy ... It's easier to hold babies in the hands.
My body is his body / heavy / and there is no power / and in
the TV the football flies / easily / before our weary / eyes
All day I sit next to my father / who is lying in bed / in a
hospital room / sometimes going out and looking for a Magen David / Just to
rest, stop paying attention to my father, as if I were in a field / looking for
butterflies / Like the songs, which are sometimes searched for and not found, /
And sometimes they are there and we do not see them.
Iara:
Cold / And my body is boiling, wet / from the age / my
husband's body who is close to me is also hot / it is another kind of heat /
and I think of my son / who leaves my house / and of my father / slowly leaving
his body
Ze'ev:
It's cold
Yet my body is sweating
As I think of my son
Who leaves my house
And my father
Who leaves his body
Iara:
My father is still in the hospital. The days pass slowly. I
work and then run to him. It all seems like a never-ending dream.
The sun does not warm, and the cold wind does not cool / the
time is stuck like a video that we stop… / The body keeps going but I do not
feel it / There is movement in the streets which I cannot see / The radio is on
and I cannot hear / The daylight is changing / As if somewhere else / I am
stuck in the picture of a video / My father's eyes are begging and pleading /
And I do not know what / I do not answer a word / I'm sick of this depression /
I'll wait for joy and then I'll write.
Ze'ev:
My body is making its way
Through the turmoil of the streets
Stuck like a stuck picture in a movie
My father's eyes ask for something
But for what?
Iara:
Envelops me gently / every evening with his body / as if I am
a precious gift / guards my dreams
When my husband wraps me with his hands and feet, I feel as
if I am a precious gift that needs to be wrapped, kept well, so that it will
not break. After so many years together, he still treats me as a gift he
received from life. He is also my gift.
Ze'ev:
Your poem is reminiscent of Aretha Franklin's song:
Strumming my pain with his fingers / Singing my life with his
words / killing me softly with his song
Iara:
I saw this scene through all the tension with Dad and his
screams. After nearly 30 years that we slept together, and as if the
relationship was fresh, like a gift that only you received. I was surprised by
this feeling that everything was still new and that there was joy and pleasure.
It's unlike everything I go through during the day, when everything looks close
to the end, to death, when there's pain and shouting. My husband takes me back
to peace, when he is enveloping me like a gift.
Ze'ev:
At day, I'm wrapped in my father's
storm
At night, in my husband's tranquility
And the iPad brings me virtual lovers
Who wrap me in hope
That the storm will eventually pass
Iara:
Here the spring holiday is/ in autumn / like his life / I am
lost / between the seasons / and my father in the Haggadah
Always on Pesach I look for the
spring that was lost to me forty years ago (like the Jews in the desert). It's
not only the season, but the childhood in Israel, the smells, the colors. I
always find autumn here. It used to be easy to find spring. It was like
the afikoman my father
was hiding in a place where it was not really hidden ... I am on my way,
between autumn and spring, between a sick father and a beloved country. Soon I
will fly.
A spring evening / father is in the fall of his life / And
I'm lost
Ze'ev:
Tomorrow I'll move
From autumn to spring -
Sao Paulo to Tel Aviv
Leaving behind
My father
When I get back
He will not remember
That I even left
Iara:
How much I lack a place to host something different from my
father inside me. Sometimes he manages to read a newspaper, most of the time he
fears that everything will open or that everything will close. I have no idea
what he's talking about - so how to help? His eyes pleading, asking us to be
near him. He also shouts that we will not go ... and then I wanted to be a
butterfly, to go and come back, to hide and appear, to feel free, to be only a
beautiful surprise for him, to get him out of fear.
Iara:
They put a tube in his belly / to save his body / Soul has no
pipe
Thanks to the pipe, his body reached his 92nd birthday today.
He does not recognize his daughters, nor his grandchildren. His eyes look
nowhere. He, who did not believe, blesses Lord all day long. The pipe saved his
body, and what about his soul?
Ze'ev:
Today is the ninety-second birthday
Of my father
Who for years, got used
To live without his soul
And his eyes are searching for it
nowhere
Iara:
this poem touched the hearts of many people. They understood
exactly my father's condition.
Iara:
Dear Ze'ev, Father passed away but he left me the words.
Thank you for helping me make them into poems - :)
Ze'ev:
I share your grief.
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