Beresheet: a Eulogy(Raanana, April 11, 2019) As it is written,Beresheet bara Elohim et ha'shamayim v'et ha'aretz,In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,And on the sixth day, God made mankind in His image,In His image He created them;Man a...
Red Rover(Raanana, February 15, 2019) “Red Rover, Red Rover,Send Opportunity over (to Mars)”Was perhaps its final ironical thoughtAs Opportunity's battery ran low,After Martian winds failed to blow offThe dust piled thick on its solar panelsFrom that last...
"Cassini" (Raanana, September 17, 2017) Up until the last few moments The objectives of the mission had been nominal: To receive the project team's requests To see and taste the atmospheres Of planets and their moons And return a steady stream Of digital...
A Riddle for Shabbat Tommy was carrying his grandfather's pale blue silk pouch with the prayer shawl inside. His grandfather was carrying Tommy on his shoulders. Tommy's other job was to make sure that the breeze didn't blow the kippa off his grandfather'...
From where she sat at a small round table in the center of the otherwise empty café a wave of quiet rippled outwards languidly in the heavy heat of the midsummer afternoon. I didn’t want to disturb the spell by entering the radius of that quiet, sitting d...
The Witness (Raanana, January 14, 2018) What did you witness today? Was it exceptional or was it like every other day? What was it about the day you found exceptional? Would you have preferred it last forever or Would you have preferred it never were? Was...
The Muse (Raanana, March 31, 2019) I feel a bitter pleasure in remembering that day In the forest outside our small village. I was walking down a leafy path Toward the little lake where I would sit By the water with my back against a smooth rock To make s...
From Jerusalem to Bethlehem (Raanana, February 13, 2018) Panthers lick the wild berries by the sea at dusk Soon the moon will rise and dreaming eyes will close, My hands' blind predilection for touching shapes Prefer their coolness to their colors. It's...
Songs of Youth My thin memories were born Among the whispering grasses Of an Indiana field sloping down To drink from a nameless creek. They were suckled by jiggers And sung to by whippoorwills and crickets Under a weeping willow by the creek And endles...
Kneehigh to an Indiana Jigger(Raanana, January 19, 2018) When I was kneehigh to an Indiana jiggerOnly birds tweeted and their tweets were longerThan a hundred and forty characters,Posts came in and went out tin boxesWith rounded roofs and red metal flagsT...
"City of Peace" (Raanana, January 12, 2018) On days like these with a high-noon sun Shining on a little courtyard, The bougainvillea silent for lack of breeze, I wonder whether David, the shepherd king, Considered the possibility I'd be sitting here Sippi...
"Sabbath Morning" (Raanana, January 6, 2018) Sabbath morning Rainwashed and sundazzled A day as fresh as any you'll ever find. Walking Daisy in the promised land, America still sleeps snugly under night. Here you're just as likely to meet God as anyone el...
"The mountains are my friends." (an Iraqi-Kurdish saying) Up until the point of writing this journal, I would have characterized my life as not being particularly interesting, unless you happened to be in the computer programming profession like me. Don’t...
Basic Training: 13 June to 7 July 1983 Monday, 13 June 1983 The bus took us from Tel HaShomer Hospital to the induction center. There we received our yellow cards, were photographed (front and profile), had our mouths x-rayed (deep throat), were vaccinate...
"What? You don't like chocolate anymore?" he asked them. "No, Saba," Tommy was pulling away. "I still like chocolate. It's just that I don't want to go here." The older man looked inside at the tables and chairs, the shelves of light and dark chocolates,...
