From the lowest to the highest: a Dada trip!
To mum and dad:
We went…
from
the lowest point of earth: The Dead Sea
Where the silence was deafening, the looming mountains of the Dead Sea
Its caves looking out like the orbital sockets of a newly discovered skull,
The receding line of water a testament to human greed and climate change,
The tractor ride takes a full five minutes to reach this shore line,
Where the crystalline salt grabs onto anything touching the water
And wraps its silky white smooth bullous surfaces around pipes
Where the few cacti spread their branches in all directions,
twisting and turning
to capture the sunlight and grow,
Where the silent masseuse insinuates her soft hands
into your 90 years old frames
Making your bodies come alive if only for a short time,
Where the warm sulfur baths enveloped and carried you floating
As if weightless in outer space
And the fields of date palm trees stand like uniformed soldiers
on the drill quadrangle
From the youngest plantings to the oldest trees topping 50 feet tall,
Mature and producing their sweet succulent fruit close to the trunk,
Like poker players holding their cards.
To
The highest elevation you have flown (in some 8 years)
Having been banned from flying for medical risk
Here you both were once again
In a helicopter!
Hovering above the Old City
The Mount of Olives, the Walls of the Jerusalem,
The Herodian mountain in the distance
(off limits to us by military rule,)
And even Rehov Trumpeldor from 500 feet above!
The horizon sports a reddish haze
But still the view is crystal clear
The gentle slopes of the Judean Hills
The Har Menuchot cemetery…
From the lowest to the highest
This attitude of elevation and depths
The soul’s ascent from the depths
“mimaamakim” from “the depths I cried out to You, Lord”
both your lives lived well…
from
The depths of the Shoah, the depths of the Dunera
The Australian outback
Mum from poverty, from Colonial Life,
the Blitz…the fear
alone in post-War London
new life
new struggles
burdens of providing for larger surviving family
slowly slowly building wealth, brick upon brick
children,
careers,
public duty to community and larger society
honored by both,
surviving most friends
struggling through cardiac and neurological illness
rehabilitation, walking,
pacemakering…
to
Eretz Yisroel
Jerusalem
Ulpan
Bookbinding
Shul
Painting
Yad leKashish
Good food!
Grand children
Great grandchildren
Still on the way!
The heights of accomplishment.
The next generations assured
Following your paths
Your exacting standards
In life, quality, self demand, and faith.
Looking back…
Looking down from the helicopter
At this landscape
This beauty
The green slopes of the hills
The trees, evergreen
The sandy buildings of villages and shechunot,
In this life!
Landscape and memory melt
Past and future blend
Generations all fuse together
We are but links in this wonderful short lived chain
From the lowest to the highest
At the end of the day
Only you can look back
Look up
Look down
And say
“I have lived a good life”
