Spring

Skyward spray of wildflowers,

delicate fireworks of yellow, white and red

almost reaching your knees. You stand

above them, peering down like a surprised giantess.

You name the flowers for me in Hebrew:

Nurit, Cochvan, Dam Maccabeem —

I try the words in my mouth

like exotic fruit I’m not sure how to eat.

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel

and they seemed to him but a few days,

for the love he had to her . . .

and you’re lying on the grass and your neck

is the same timeless white as the stones of Judea

which shone as now when Jacob first

saw his pale Rachel and those seven years

blanched into one nightless day.

You sit up, frown at me writing this,

begrudge the little heat my notebook’s shadow

steals from the day. But I promise

an autumn evening to come

when you’ll read by lamplight

what I now write in sunlight

and remember April’s warmth in the season of rains.