The Scroll of Anatiya. Zoë Klein
the feathery hopes of young virgins
and of the frightened mothers with babes in their bellies and arms,
only because they stand innocently in Your barreling way
to cut off all the men from the squares.
37To punish You for tearing her marriage,
to punish You for pursuing her groom,
to punish You for the loves You left
piled like sheaves behind the reaper,
38Your daughter erases the names of the women from her scroll,
Your careful latticework of female legend she blots out, saying:
39“If You will not see us in Your wild stampede,
than I will not have You write us!”
40God is in search of man
and man is in search of God,
and woman is irreconcilably lost
~wrote Anatiya.
41You take note of the circumcised of Israel ~wrote Anatiya~ 42You count them with half shekels. When do you count me? 43Am I the same as a forlorn girl of fourteen from Egypt or Edom, Ammon or Moab? 44Who am I in this great House of Israel? I will tell You who I am. 45I am the Temple treasure. I am the whisper of the secret name in the Holy of Holies. 46I am the quickened pulse. I am the blood that purifies the altar. 47I am just as You are, my God and my Redeemer, I am that I am. I will be what I will be.
10
Hear the words that I say to you, O mournful Jeremiah!
2Do not be dismayed by the portents in the sky, my love,
do not beat yourself over the profanity of others.
3You weary me with your sorrow,
weary me to death, my love,
every teardrop is a nail,
every sob is a hammer
that secures my grave.
Heaven forbid!
4You totter there like a scarecrow in a cucumber patch,
and the crows are getting wise to your impotence.
5Let them gorge themselves on the shallow minds,
and you walk away with me.
6I will kiss you until you are raw
and red and alive,
7I will kiss you until your senses sizzle
like sweet butter
on a hot stone.
You will see that it is good.
8You are hashmal, gleaming amber,
when streaking God-bolts
thrust jagged daggers across the sky,
slashing it into the slow-bleeding sunsets
that embrace your silhouette.
9You run but the storm never leaves you;
it clings like fog to a mountain.
10The lightning races fast as thought,
frantic for a place to land,
for a place to bridge sky and land
in a momentary star-way-stairway of light.
11It leaves cedar and steppe unscathed,
preferring to pound its light into you,
my weary prophet,
striking with deafening light and blinding thunder.
12You are ignited and bright as hashmal;
you cage a tiny sun in your breast
and it streams through your eyes
and sears over your lips.
13I could be your blanket of snow;
I am as muted and blank.
I could quiet you and cool you.
14Your fever would melt me away
before my presence was felt.
A slight shiver is all I am.
15The world was created through a series of separations. Light from darkness. Day from night. Earth from sea from sky. Second from first.
16O, let my darkness reunite with his light!
Though the world be unborn,
though we return to the void,
17though we become unformed!
At least unformed we cannot bear Your yoke.
18Forgive me my mockery, dear God!
With what frivolity I speak,
with no discipline in my thoughts,
obscuring counsel without knowledge,
speaking without understanding
of things beyond me, which I do not know.
19I recant. I relent.
I am but dust and ashes!
20You established the world in Your wisdom.
21You bring forth the wind from Your treasuries.
22You form all things perfectly
and with purpose.
Mortal eyes cannot see this.
23Dear God, how I love You!
How I love Your good Name!
24You are my God and there is none else,
in the Heavens above and on the earth below,
all else is delusion.
25I gather up my bundle from the ground
and march after my love like an ant.
26For once, I am grateful for my muteness. When Jeremiah speaks, he is a masterful orator, expertly spinning lyrics and parables. 27He harnesses his voice into speeches that dance before chariots of kings.
28If I were to speak,
what folly would pour from my mouth!
29I can blot out the words that I write
and pen them, inspired, anew.
30But a spoken word cannot be retracted.
I may have broken cords, or
caused great commotion
if I spoke out of fever,
or out of distress.
31The passion in my soul
may have been dull when encased
in the limits of spoken language.
32It is the spontaneity of speech
that frightens me the most!
Writing needs no such spontaneity.
33How many times would I have opened my mouth
in a rush to call out, “How I need you! How it hurts!”
34The shame! I can only imagine him
turning around,
shoulders dropping,
head shaking,
and then he would flee from my need,
from my intrusiveness,
from