Jerusalem Love Song

By Toby Klein Greenwald

I wrote this poem as a college student in Jerusalem, inspired by a date I had with a young Israeli man who took me on a long nighttime walk through the back streets and alleyways of Jerusalem.

Four years later, when I was dating a different Israeli man, he, too, took me on long walks through the alleyways of Jerusalem. By then I realized that this was the modus operandi of Jerusalemites.

I married the second man, and we are still taking walks through Jerusalem alleyways.

Jerusalem

I hold you cupped in the palm of my hand

Like a shiny smooth button

or stones

upon stones

In the night you stretch and yawn

and doze into sleep

like a thoughtful man awake in his soul

though body quiet

Jerusalem

atop your buildings are lions

and sundials

I cannot find another place

in all the world

where trees are shadowed so against the moondark

when peeking into alleyways

Jerusalem

up and down hills

swift steps

laughter and joy in the night

melancholy

and toward dawn

the first scent of jasmine

silhouetted against the sounds of

newspaper boys

on motorbikes

three-thirty coffee on a third floor

lights

gentle smiles and yawns

and toward dawn

hot bread

taxis roaming with sleepy-eyed drivers

chuckles

and toward dawn

two men

atop a horse and buggy

clip-clopping over the button-smooth roads

nodding good morning

unsmiling

calm

clip-clopping over the button-smooth roads

clip-clopping through Jerusalem

toward dawn.

Summer, 1971