Ariel's Blog

Published!!!!

arjb — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:56:57 +0000

So…..finally every self indulgent poet’s dream….my poem is being printed! In a real literary magazine! http://www.poeticamagazine.com/yomkippuredition.htm

<3 love

Up on the Mountain

arjb — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:31:36 +0000

From my pearch high

above the city

I can watch the

ebb and flow

The curving roads dipping

down towards the beach

the swaying trees

and rumbling cars

All slowly melt into the sea

A calm steady flow

Feeding into the churning surf

I can see it all from

my perch above

the city

Up hear there is no sound

Just a warm

breeze carrying the

city noise out

drowning in the

waves

How small

How insignificant

300,000 lives

the sea streaches out

to the horizon

Re-memory Day

arjb — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:03:50 +0000

Last night I stood at my window and watched the fireworks exploding over the city. Exploding over the valley too. What a beautiful site. But I couldn’t get the sound of the siren out of my head. I had awoken at 10:50 thinking that somehow we had slept through it. Then it went off. Wailing across the country. The horrible sound. Deep and piercing. On any other day it would mean ‘run’. Run as fast as you can. Today it screams ‘stand still’. So we stood, like we are supposed to. Without thinking. Just got out of bed and stood. To remember. To feel sad. To think about what remembering means and what it will bring us tomorrow. To think about how, just like this year, next year there will be new names to add. There are always more names. For a week we remember. It starts with the siren that tells us to remember the fire and the smoke that nearly destroyed us. It ends with remembering those who died to make sure it would never happen again. And then it stops. But it doesn’t just stop, it fades out. You can hear the sirens go off one by one fading into the valleys, the mountains, the sea. We absorb the sound. We have to carry it with us for another year. In some ways standing up each year is what reminds me, I am Israeli now. I mourn with the rest of my county. I try to hold back the tears watching program after program about soldiers who were killed. We make such an amazing effort to put a face to the names. These were real people. With real mothers and families. With real dreams. Who really died. The worst part is knowing that there will be so many more. Today there is no war we will put it off another day. Today we will sit at home and remember. Tomorrow, tomorrow we will be celebrate them. Because tomorrow we know, we really are here because of them.

Atone

arjb — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:47:52 +0000

Yom Kippur for the secular nation

Roaming the streets the siren stills echos
Off the vacant store fronts
A ghost town
So that we will remember

The buzzing in the air
The electric charge of a collective silence
Spirits are rising above us
Even the streets signs remember

Its an uncomfortable quiet.
It carries out to valley below
Where our youths rest
Not so peacefully

The morning will bring wreaths
And half burned out candles
Scattered across the nation

There is no news today.
We must atone for what we have done
Sent our children off to die.

Today is Yom Kippur
Tomorrow will be a new year.

Gown Up

arjb — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:37:17 +0000

Grow Up

Am I a gown up now?

I lie beside you in this cold dark chair. The smell of the sick stings my nose.

But this is what it is to be a grownup. Right? To give up for others your own comforts. To relinquish your dreams for that sensible job that comes with sensible shoes. Hopefully a sensible pay check on the 10^th of the month.

When I was five I had a camera. I saw the whole world. When I was 16 I was sure that I could capture it if I only tried to see harder. My eyes have already begun to tire. How much more do I have to see? I would be content to just take a nap. Rest these sensible bones.

But you had such promise!

Screams my past.

Where is it?

Screams my future.

My spirit light is growing dim. I know not where the matches are. And they say that youth doesn’t last forever. Resigned to the sensible path, I feel old.

Reconcile

arjb — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:36:01 +0000

I can’t

Seem to be that girl

That I am in the picture

She is a person I had longed to

And then suffered to

I hate being that girl in the picture

With her gun and her faith

(that faith that lingers so coldly)

She is no reality. She represents

Not a lie but something beyond…

An overly symbolic poster child

I am on the poster, but no child

It is something so far from my reality

I can not begin

To reconcile them together

The image and the truth

Myself and my past

The dream with the current

Situation.

What happens when two halves drift

So far apart

They cannot be

Reconnected

How does one reconcile

Self to self.

Sitting at home, the women wait

arjb — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:17:43 +0000

Careful I tape the flag up on the door. I want to make sure that it won’t fall. That it can last until they are home. “Welcome back ” reads the sign above it. They are my heroes. I wish I could be stronger. Not cry when walk through that door. Not cry when all I can get is the voice mail. No one wants to be a soldier at war. No one wants to be sitting, waiting at home.

Tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree.

I have no tree. Just a door, decorated with the flag. The flag that flies so gloriously in the photos on the news. Over the tanks as they roll back in slowly, heavy with weary soldiers, and worn souls.

I want to be strong for you, to tell you only good news. Not how I could hardly get out of bed this week. Not how I cried my self to sleep, then woke up to cry again. How it pained me to miss you. How I stood by the phone and told everyone the little news I had. I wanted to be brave for you. But I could never be as brave as you.

Terrible. The fear, the uncertainty. I have banned the news in this house. No one really wants to watch a war. I don’t need more reason to worry.

I will hug you so hard, embarrass you with my tears, and show my weakness. Just to feel you close to me again. Nothing makes you feel farther away then a cold green uniform, and a cold black gun. ”Stand back” it says, “This one is ours”.

What do they want me to say? ”Im ok, I manage. Its alright, he will be home soon.” And then I hang up the phone and feel so defeated, so alone. In my room safe and warm and you…. in a metal box in the cold with the gun shots. I wish that I could do something, something to be stronger for you. He said that its the worst when the women cry on the phone. So I will cry silent tears. I will tell you I love you and ask what I can do when I know that I can do nothing.

But I would do anything. They say “He is safe, out of harms way.” But what do they really know about that? Harm is not just physical pain. What do they know about the pain you will carry for what you have seen?

Like all the women I will hold you, when the memories come. I will rock you and tell you its ok. But what do us women know of war? All I know of war is the sirens. The dreadful sirens that stole my sleep, and my waking hours. The sirens that never let me forget where you were. And the news, the dreadful news that I didn’t want to listen to. But that was my job. To bear that pain quietly and be strong, “For the men.” To answer the phone in the middle of the night and quiet the fears of a soldier marching off to battle.

Sitting at home, the women wait.

For our sons, our brothers, our husbands. We hang the flag on the door, its all that I can do. I wish I could be stronger. A truer daughter of Zion.

missing my boys

arjb — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:25:46 +0000

for all of those who just don’t listen. maybe you are hearing the wrong voice. the voice of support is not the voice of pro- war. aren’t we all pro-peace? no one wants people to die. not on any side. we all just want to live, in peace, in quiet, our lives.

The message, it’s in the clouds.

arjb — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:47:58 +0000

tower and the majesty

oasis dessert

arjb — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:40:54 +0000

Quench my thirst

Won’t you

My desperate need

For more than you can ever supply

But there are so many who have

come from the beginning

to drink from your well

How deep can it be

Surely we are approaching the bottom

But they insist it is bottomless

As you believe

That the spring that feeds this

Oasis holds every answer and will

Feed it forever

And what of those who stopped believing

What quenches our thirst now

For I can’t find the spring

That fills this spiritual well

What will come of my arid soul

In this oasis city

When will it quench my thirst