The Stones of Lifta - Paperback

by Marc Kaminsky (Author)

The poems of Marc Kaminsky's The Stones of Lifta address the heartbreak of a history torqued and twisted by fear and hatred, but this poet's heart remains unbroken, alive, responsive, and attuned to a painful dissonance. He consents, humbly and bravely, to abide with the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, to align himself with both his heritage and his empathy, so that the indissoluble contradictions of that conflict become, ultimately, nothing less than the paradox at the heart of being fully, vulnerably, honestly human. -Richard Hoffman

Sample:

HINANI

Unworthy as I am, when I saw

footage of my friend Menachem climbing beneath

the Jerusalem hills with an old man-

a displaced person-an Arab

who guided him into the ruins of his home

in Lifta, I felt something

become as clear and actual to me

as if for one pulse beat I heard

a voice speaking to my heart.

Call it the divine, it is the voice that calls

to us once or twice in a lifetime.

We recognize it immediately and answer, Here I am,

for we remember it from before

we were born, and remain ready all our lives to go

where it sends us. It spoke clearly

and distinctly as I sat with Menachem

in my Brooklyn office, watching

his unfinished film, it said to me, Go

to Lifta, accompany your friend to the emptied village

of Lifta, walk beside him as he treads carefully

around the boulder that blocks the winding path up to Lifta.