Samuel 7: In Writing

 Recursive 

On my forty-fifth birthday, my credit

card gave to me:

30% off at Fox (clothes and home goods)

(calculate school shirts, sweatpants, are PJs included?)

a hand lotion from Sabon

a cake of choice at Zariffa, 

which I will eat

though I know I shouldn’t.

For the first time

in almost ten years, 

I will not

stock up on baby clothes.

For the first time 

in almost ten years

there is no baby 

strapped against my chest

or billowing my belly.

Wait and wait for the weight to lift

only to try to weigh down again–

blanket, vest, power workouts–

ways to broaden the britteling bones

make being dense

and pin my shadow in place

to be sewn down with a lost thimble. 

Of course everything circles round

and one day I’ll look back

and laugh–

or cry–

because all water incubates

in the sea and will return

to the sea

even our tears, with their salty traces

and our salt blood

stained red by iron

like the scraps of metal

in the bucket that seeps rust

darkening the water

that will replenish my rickety lemon tree

whose scrawny branches 

 struggle to bud

or even unfurl their wings

unlike the irridecent sunbird

that darts between them

searching for the sugar water

I forgot to leave in its feeder

because leftovers and decay 

are another’s nourishment

mother other udder

merging and switching

like rippes distorting the pond

that flee my finger

and then still

resolving to a face.  

Samuel: Chapter 7

 

Loop around

and return

back to where you began

back to your heart

For full chapter, click here

The saga of the Ark's capture, which seemed to end in the previous chapter with the Ark's return, is now revealed to be part of a longer saga of twenty years of longing and displacement. For "return" (sh'v שב)--the chapter's key word--is a process. The Ark has physically returned to Israeli territory, but remains decentered, tucked away on a hill outside of national consciousness. The Philistines' "sending forth"  of the Ark undoes its physical taking, but not the distance from God that precipitated its capture.  Only after time and space become saturated with "longing" can this distance be addressed.  

The saga, which is introduced with  Samuel's "word going forth to all of Israel" can only be resolved by Samuel. Return, he tells the people, begins within: God will only return when "you return to God with all of your heart." Samuel, indeed, goes back in history, all the way back to Joshua, and his final address to the people, where he demands that they remove "the alien gods from within you" and "prepare their hearts" for God.

Israel's removal of the alien gods precipitates a second address, as Samuel calls the people together in Mitzpa (a redemption, perhaps, of the last gathering of "all" Israel in Mitzpa, which ended in civil war), which becomes a reprise of the fatal war with the Philistines--with profound differences. This time it is the Israelites rather than the Philistines who fear the "sounds" in the camp; this time, the people pray, rather than mechanically attempting to control God; this time, it is God, rather than the Israelites, who makes the noises that terrify the Philistines.  This reprise ends in victory, offering a way back, as the territory previously lost "returns" to Israel. 

The looping nature of this saga of restoration is highlighted by the location "Even HaEzer"--the "helping stone": previously introduced as the site of Israel's great defeat and the loss of the Ark,  it is here reintroduced as indicating that "God has helped us unto here". The reprise has redefined the beginning.