Prose

Art

Reviews

Mother

1.
Where are we going Mother?
We are going to our country
to our land.
Where is our country Mother?
I can not say its name
it is forbidden.
Is our country far away?
On the other side of the sea, son.
Is the trip long?
Two thousand years long
three weeks on the road
five hours on the plane.
And the children in that country, who are they?
All Jews, like you.
And How am I?



2.
Have we arrived yet, Mother?
Years ago, son.
Because mother, I do not see that we have arrived
these are not Jews like me.
This are your people, this is your country.
But, mother, I do not see the trees of my childhood
and the people?s words seem very strange.
'Esto es lo que hay'. (This is all there is to be.)
But you promised me we were going to our country
and this is not my country this are not my people
these are not my Jews.
You can leave.
Where to, mother?
to my hometown
neither my double nor my shade lives anymore
my children were born here
and even they
look like strangers to me
my woman is from another country
she doesn?t know our traditions
my languages are different from the human languages
I do not have where to return to
I have no country
I have no people
and this journey doesn?t end
there is no way to finish it,
I am forever stuck in that four in the morning
The last smell of coffee with milk in the coffee-pot
leaving toward Ceuta and seeing Algeciras from the sea
Remaining forever in that nocturnal trip
that never sees the light of day and no matter how I try
I am a foreigner here in this homeland
that you longed for so long
now that you say to me mother
that I can go to Spain
with my enlarged tribe
that I should head toward another exile
another place will become exile
like Israel, Jerusalem, Tetuan, Lucena
all our homelands become exiles.



La campana

I walk these streets
Maharaka Anouar street
Mohamed Torres street
King Mohamed V street
and their names
caress my heart
and I see
running
always parallel to me
the boy I was
running
to eat an ice-scream
in La Glacial
to buy cakes in La Campana
going and coming back

I see
the child
is afraid
and I ask him
"what are you afraid of,
beautiful child?"

He doesn't answer.

Are you afraid of
the adult you will become?

He doesn't answer.

Are you afraid of
the Arabs, from whom
you were always warned about?

He doesn't answer.

He is sad. Tears fill his eyes
inside of him there is happiness.

I try to embrace him
but he is afraid of my caress.
He is afraid that after the caress
a blow will come, in



the back, in the face, on the hand
he is afraid that after the caress
screams will follow

and I see that my hands toward him
cause him an asthmatic attack
he longs for love
but is afraid of a caress.
he loves
but is scared to show it.
He even loves the Arabs
but he has been warned
until his light dimmed.

and I say to him
from a distance:
don't worry
you will grow to love the world
in spite of everything, in spite of everybody
it won't be easy
but you will grow to shine.

And thanks to this encounter
I grew up to be who I am.



Building

sunsets so many sunsets
the sunsets of our exiled homes
forever settled by strangers
who will never understand their stones
homes like my home
who lived my childhood
who lived the illness of my brother
homes like my homes where
expatriates from their exiles were born
to the land of Israel, to foreignness within their homeland
homes crying their builders who left
don't say builders say sons
sons of their homes
and now they have no
fathers.