Although my writing is often a confrontation between people or a situation between people, it has been greatly influenced by two of the places I've lived in – Vermont and Israel.

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TO MY MOTHER

There was never a day

that you stood with me

looking out of a door

dizzy

after bending down

to saw wood

and everything was golden

a golden haze

over

the green trees

and leaves turning

yellow and red

and the distant

mountains looking

black.

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The poem is about a relationship; the setting is in Vermont. We moved to Vermont in 1970 and lived without electricity for five years. Our house was heated with wood and we had a wood cook stove. So setting the relationship in front of a Vermont house in the woods was natural.

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We moved to Israel in 1982. Suddenly our environment changed drastically. But the shift from Vermont and country living to urban living in Jerusalem and then Tel Aviv was less of a culture shock than the move from New York City to Vermont.

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Living in Israel has produced great changes in life style, values and what is important and this is reflected in my writing.

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The first time I approached the Western Wall my heart pounded. One Tish b'av I slept infront of the Wall. Not just me, but many people. I was in the Women's section, saw all kinds of women pulling mattresses, sleeping bags, women who are not written about in the newspapers, who are not making political statements but are sleeping in front of a place that is home. And I've been one of them.

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SLEEPING AT THE WESTERN WALL

my friend is sleeping at the Western Wall

well no, she's staying up all night at the Western Wall

the stars will mind her

keep track

the last men praying

will leave

she'll be there and say, ah, it feels good

I slept there once

in a sleeping bag

in the month of Av

This friend and I slept once

at Rachel's Tomb

I woke up and heard the guard saying

it's not done you don't do it

you don't sleep at Rachel's Tomb

but we did

took a 10 p.m. bus from Jerusalem

and then it was too late to get back to Tel Aviv

I stretched out on a bench

and fell immediately to sleep

first I prayed

touched the velvet curtains

around the tomb

read for the hundredth time

Rachel crying for her children

to return to their border

then I went to sleep

the guard gave us coffee

and drove us to a bus stop

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When I picked rosemary along the side of the road walking from Rachel's Tomb to Jerusalem, I remembered picking live forevers and fiddle heads in Vermont. When I unscrew a jar of homemade peanut butter or grow basil, parsley and lettuce on my terrace in Tel Aviv, I'm using what I learned when I had a garden and made peanut butter and jam in Vermont.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Lois Michal Unger, Guest Blogger

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Lois Michal Unger was born in New York City. When she married the family moved to Vermont. In 1982 they made aliya to Israel. Poems have appeared in magazines in Israel, the U.S. and internationally. She has written six books of poems. Her poetry has been translated into Hebrew, Italian, Hungarian, Russian and French. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor