I miss Israel and I hardly know her.

Smells, drafts, wrappers, accents remind me of her

everyday living.

She’s my mother, true, but I didn’t care for her much in infancy,

Stills and stories without sentiment on my part.

She summoned for me a few times after I had left.

I returned, true, seeing her only in passing; there were

too many distractions, cold rejecting distractions, blown

up and fat distractions, ridiculed and dividing distractions.

Last spring when death summoned, I returned

as an adult, as an individual, as a decider as well as an

outsider unwilling to participate in distractions.

And I heard her and smelt her and threw her and breathed

her everyday living.

I left without knowing how much I’d miss her.

This passionate gnawing, its her summon again

however compelling the urge to rush to her side, circumstances

will not permit me…yet.

Tamar Eylon