Tuesday Poem: "Poem on My Father's Birthday"

On the train to Haifa

I think about my father

in wartime Palestine,

a different time, a different name

but the same place.

His memories of oranges and beaches

and warm, Mediterranean swimming

are the times he chose to rescue

from the six years when the world

was drowning in its own blood.

The weather is blue and grey

but the sun shines

like my father’s medals

on his blue-grey air force uniform

that entranced me as a child.

As the helicopter gunships prowl over Mount Carmel,

speeding north to Lebanon,

I wonder what times I will choose to rescue

from a land built out of longing,

but paid for in blood.

The poet wishes to acknowledge The Press in whose pages this poem first appeared.