Changing the order
This year you put an orange on the Seder plate
and when Daniel asked
so why is our plate different from all others
you answered
the orange is for those kept out of mind
supposed to know their place
but crossing a sea of Reeds
and you made all the difference
we spoke of wandering oranges
Ari said
back in the 1890s
it was an Arab crop
and thousands of years before
birds rivers people brought the pips from China
sweetening as they went
a galut of such fruit
80 now your mother remembered having picked a crop all night
on a kibbutz in the Galiliee
her lips and tongue and fingertips yellow and sticky with juice
the ground glowing with it
for years when he came back from Haifa
my father scanned catalogues and stores for a juicer
so the taste would take him back
to a thin dark girl whose language he’d put his tongue to
talking late of an Israeli state
her promised land
he taught me this way of peeling an orange
of slipping it gently out of its skin to leave one long unbroken curve
he had such patience with each fruit
this year he would have watched you fill the final cup
and open the door for Miriam
who put a desert of regret behind her
this year he would have said a bracha for the orange
Seven Brachot for Chava
(for Diana Lipton)
Brucha At Chava
Bless you Eve for keeping the snake talking
and finding he had a sympathetic ear somewhere under his smart green skin
Bless you for not saying
this is paradise
this is absolute heaven
meaning no more than the company of a man who opened his ear to a secret inner voice
or spent G-d knows how many hours talking to himself
before looking sheepish
eating his words
and kissing the earth that made even his feet blush
Bless you for knowing that the fruits of the earth in however many divine tones and semitones
sumptuous berries
polished aubergines and sweet cucumbers
that thrilled your taste buds
would leave you leafing your mind for names to make them last
Bless you for refusing to discuss horticulture or herbs or food
raw or cooked
for saying
Listen Adam a kitchen is a place of endless recycling
and I have no such vacant space inside my head
Bless you for giving rise to a thousand bodies of knowledge
for dreaming a city
for getting your hands on this world