|
|
Article: Jew's harp: David in Copenhagen.(Poem)
- Article from:
- Judaism
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 American Jewish Congress. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
After thirty years I left my kibbutz in the Galil
for Stine's Copenhagen. She spoke a tongue
I'd never heard, tied me with talk of a place
she defined by smoothing her hand over mine.
You ask what an Israeli is doing in Denmark,
and I tell you: working, drinking, dreaming
of going home. There are many of us,
all with the same story, same poor
accents, stuck palates pattering
mixtures of Hebrew, Danish, even English.
We fell in love with "exotic" women--
tall, blonde, nordic, sharp contrasts
to dark and middle-eastern--brimming
with socialist ideals and interested in
(at least not against) Judaism. We lost ourselves
in the underbelly of a woman's tongue.
Strange ...