278 PART THREE
In “Waiting,” on the Day of Atonement,
... the rains are late, we ’re not forgiven,
and autumn won’t come.
A few blurry showers in the north,
not in Jerusalem. No loosening.
No green rinsing of the trees.
No “green rinsing,” unless that verbal music brings a grace of its own. In the
hot dry wind of “HAMSIN Breaking After Five Days,”
Something flutters the ivy on the walls
across the street...
Blessed be whatever sprinkles
a little water on the dust
to make it settle.Like the “small rain” craved in England ’s anonymous “Western Wind,” Eliot ’s
sunken Ganges where “the limp leaves / waited for rain,” and like earlier re-
ligions, Judaism needs a blessing for rain, news of release and a fresh start. In
Kaufman’s writing, always seasonally alert and weather-wise, waiting for rain
gives a local presence to no-less-present political and spiritual longings.
If wherever you walk in Jerusalem is holy ground, it ’s political as well
and physical, fruitful earth. “Autumn Crocus” moves like Breughel and Van
Gogh into the fields, “I go... I watch,” eking out ecologic news fraught with
overtones.
I go to the center of the world
near the edge of Jerusalem
where the grapes are all picked
and the men are climbing
into the olive trees.
I watch how they beat the branches
and the dark fruit drops to the ground.
The families move in and out
of the dust to gather them.
October again.
The rains are coming, the steep cold
and the festering idleness.
The women are sorting the bitter crop.
In the empty fields small
clusters of lavender petals
explode from the soil
without any warning, not even
a stem or a single leaf.