Aba

This text is partly a eulogy and partly a lyrical biography of my father, Arie Kenig, whose heart slowly wound down, until it seized, on Friday, 21/12/2018, in Almeria, Andalucia, Spain, the place of his residence, at 9 PM, after long years of flaky health, months in which he was confined powerless to the couch at his home, and long days in which he was hospitalized with a weakening heart syndrome.

Apart from the first and last poems, all other poems in this collection are his.

I attempted to translate everything from its Hebrew origin to English, and hope I have succeeded to some extent with some of the poems.

*

Approximately half a year ago, around Israel’s 70^th independence day celebrations, I wrote a poem about my father and the country (Israel) and sent it to him. He called me deeply moved and tearful, and shared with me how this poem recounts him in a precise manner, and yet made me swear that I won’t publish it in his lifetime, as he was a very private man and didn’t want his illness to be common knowledge.

The poem follows:

Seventy

My father is the same age as our country

And he is the only one that was not on TV¹

Celebrating the fact that he is seventy

And like our country

He too managed to survive

At times with pride

My father is the same age as our country

In the same year

And like our country

He too was born to the austerity’s toughness

Lots of strikes, pursuits and evasions

Surrounded by threatenous threats

And at evening, when father’s father arrived

To the council at the grim kitchen corner

They talked about how his brother was better

And father’s mother spoke of how he hasn’t amended his acts

And pointed out all the bad deeds he had done

So father’s father took out his belt

Trumpery, father then yelled out in a rage

Stomped in offense

And fled to the laps of solace²

To his big sister

There he rested

Until times of war

And like our country, he too appeared reassured after six days³

Alongside it he once erroneously pointed a MAG

At a monastery bell that he once pointed me out

And alongside it

He was happy at the kibbutz

In a humane socialist utopia

He blossomed and bloomed

He evolved, he emerged

And alongside it he was delighted and suffered

And like it he discovered

A rare genetic illness he carries

And at times he relentlessly swelled

And suffered even when it was not prescribed

At least not from outside

My father is the same age as our country

And like our country, he too was almost killed in Kippur⁴

When he was at the Hermon⁵

Face to face

With some Syrian

He was armed with a rifle, the Syrian with a MAG⁶

That year the Syrian was killed

And my father’s soul and leg crashed

And our country was crushed

Like our country, in order to smoothen the post

Trauma

And the trauma itself

My father settled down and established a family

He educated himself and was indeed a success

He evolved and became

The best in the world in his field

And like our country

He too did not notice

How while he was working so hard

And everything seemed to be in place

His body was beaten by bites that belittled his build

My father is the same age as our country

And like our country, his health was aloof

When he turned fifty

Cardiac arrests hit him

Cancer was eating him

His bones broke within him

His systems failed him

And like our country

He held on

He is one

My father is the same age as our country

And he is the only one that was not on TV

Celebrating the fact that he is seventy

And held on

And like our country

He came out real

And uncommon

And unlike our country

And owing to it

Spain is his home

___________

1 – During the time Israel celebrated its 70^th independence day, there were many pieces on TV telling the stories if people who were born in the same year as Israel was formed (1948).

2 – His big sister’s name is Nehama (נחמה), meaning comfort, consolation, compassion

3 – The Six Day War (1967)

4 – Yom Kippur War (1973)

5 – A mountain in the Golan Heights, where heavy battles between Israel and Syria took place during the Kipur War

6 – A type of machine gun

*

This poem is full of his magic, that was and wasn’t, touched and didn’t, and was a kicking and soothing one.

Suppose

Suppose I’ll touch

A flower

And it floods your eyes,

Just suppose

(For in reality my hand cannot reach)

Later I’ll unhang from the rack

A hug

And we’ll sneak inside it,

Suppose

(For in reality I stayed here)

And then

I will mimic the sounds of the flower

To hide

That which erases

And oblivifies

Suppose

(For I am still here)

Beyond the sounds.

*

My father hasn’t always resided where he wanted, or not exactly where he wanted, be it in the physical world, be it in the geographic world, in the emotional world, in the spiritual world, or just be it. He was stretched between worlds.

High Voltage

High like that, clueless

I am hung on power lines

Stretched from country to country

To the verge of short breath.

From no pain to pain

To the verge of short spirit.

And again –

___________

Notes:

This poem demonstrates numerous language maneuvers. Its title, High Voltage, means also high stress. Power lines are also lines of stress. The fourth line translates to a short circuit of breath, but sounds like the more common phrase, short breath. From no pain to pain sounds like “kind of a pain to a pain”. Short spirit is also an idiom meaning impatience.

*

One of the defining events of his life was the Yom Kippur War. He lost many of his friends there. In the battle for the Hermon he wound up face to face with a Syrian soldier. They shot each other. The syrian was killed. My father was seriously injured. At first it looked like the leg will be amputated, but eventually it was saved. Nevertheless, one of the main nerves was damaged. Throughout my childhood I remember him using a cane and occasionally falling, and I remember myself believing that when grown-ups fall down, unlike children, it’s terrible.

On top of the above, he also suffered from post-trauma, with all its consequences. After the war he was in therapy, and was told to write something about what he felt. This is what he wrote:

It Was A War

It’s unparalleled madness

It’s an horrifying drip

Of earth and lead¹

Walking in a silenced town

Pacing with fallen corpses

It’s insomnia that has taken you ill

These are your veins that are filled with hatred

This is your face that has gone yellow

From the whiteness of bones

And it is your heart that has shrunk from the cold

It’s walking in a mad stricken town

Where all the shutters are shut

Pacing on the shore

Of a sea that has burned and vaporised

It’s walking in dusty roads

Pacing in front of the light and seeing darkness

It’s remembering and not willing to forget

It’s a crushed-face Klatch²

And tendons of the soul, torn

Like a shattered drum

It’s inappropriate perpetuation

And eyes with no white

And you have seen the tears of a hoarse throat dry up

It’s a chill craving for warmth

It’s faintness shouting for life

It’s a paperless divorce

It’s a yellow man

Without a pack of cigarettes

It’s tea with no house³

And peopleless mirrors⁴

___________

1 – Lead and earth have very similar phonetics (afer, oferret), and sound like the idiom “earth to ashes” (in English: ashes to ashes, dust to dust).

2 – a nickname for the Russian war gun Kaltchnikov

3 – Tea house is a tea-shop

4 – Mirrors and sights share the same work in Hebrew

*

This entire thing, the war, the post-trauma, his childhood, and he himself, were a man who was a storm, and a storm who was a man. I used storms when describing the Hebrew original of this poem, since in Hebrew a flurry of emotions translates to a storm of the spirit.

The Depths

The rock in the depth of the abyss

Where there is no light of day

Knows that the sun has set

Only from emotional flurry

*

He worked very hard in order to be a private person. He went many extra miles in order to keep his life private. Even when within himself he was immensely struggling with difficulties, whether emotionally or physically, and usually both of these, he always made sure to put on a mask of a smile, of happiness and love. Notwithstanding that this mask had elements of truth within it, it was still a mask.

Mask

Beneath the veil of my face

I hide depression.

There I am naked.

*

Nevertheless, even in the most desperate and difficult of times, he always knew how to find, create and touch hope.

Even In The Murky Snow

Silence is there

Wrapped in a pink ribbon

On a messy table.

In the window, a man pisses

A murky path

In the May snow.

Tightly caved

In a cold and wet silence,

Hope rises

Even in the murky snow.

*

Nevermind where he was and in what condition, he always knew how to be connected. To himself, to the place, the time, the soul.

When the doctors realized his terminal state I was in Seattle. Christmas was nearing and flights were extremely hard to find. I went out on a 30 hours journey from Seattle to Philadelphia to Paris to Barcelona to Granada, and from there another two hours drive to Almeria, where he was hospitalized. When I arrived he was already in a hazy state of consciousness. My brother and I managed to wake him up, so that he opened his eyes for a couple of minutes. I spoke to him, and I felt that he knows and that he hears, but he could no longer answer, he could no longer speak.

After a while my brother and I were standing on both sides of his bed. I told my brother: “I hope he knows I am here”. My brother answered: “I’m sure he knows”. And then, from nowhere, after having not spoken for a very long time, out of the blue my father asked wonderingly: “How do you know?!”. These were the final words I heard him say. Even in such a situation he knew how to spot the logical failure and to twist the plot.

Sanity¹

Friday, and what the hell amidoing here.

Far from my loved ones and family.

Far.

New voices mixed in with my sobbings.

Voices of Africa. The song-calls of the Fish Eagle².

Once more, I sensed that unclearthing that widens the heart.

That smiles my intestines.

And I knew, that I’m at the right time.

The eagle silenced.

I searched. He was behind me, waddling in the water, gazing at open space.

In silence.

Alone with the moment.

For a moment I knew thatheknew.

Thank you.

___________

1 – In many songs Arie connects words and creates new ones. In this one in particular. I attempted to translate these as best I could here, and bring out the spirit of it. Below are the combined words in this poem:

amidoing = am I doing

unclearthing = unclear thing

thatheknew = that he knew

2 – Osprey

*

More than God, (whom I call Pastafari), created him – he created his God. As a part of that, he wanted to have a different ceremony of death, (more different when considering his Jewish heritage). Throughout the last year of his life he repeatedly asked my brother and myself that when the time comes, his body should be cremated, (whenever he said that to me, I told him that he has plenty of time left, and that he should shut up about it).

After receiving his ashes we rented a small and luxurious yacht in the Murcia region. Our captain’s name was Jesus. We had a picnic with food that he loved, (my father greatly loved and appreciated high quality food), with fine cheeses, special meats, (from acorn-fed pork), Ajo Blanco (the Almerian version, not the better known Spanish one, which is a kind of a divine dip prepared from ground almonds and garlic), and Bitter Kas, (the red nauseating beverage that he loved so much), and more. We arrived to the open sea, to the Almeria Naval District. Captain Jesus silenced the engines. We conducted a small ceremony. I read two poems (the first and last one in this collection), and my brother said parting words and scattered the ashes. A trail of my father was formed in the sea. The sounds were of a complete silence, a miraculous silence, a wholly silence. We hugged and sat down for an infinite minute. In the most perfect possible manner, the silence was shattered by one of his favorite songs, Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, that announced: And Jesus was a sailor.

My father couldn’t have possibly planned a more perfect thing.

Chant

My God,

Who are you

That has created my presence for him here?

That trees you have planted I received

That a canyon you carved I have crossed

That in the light you have sprinkled I enlightened.

Once I dreamt you

Today I no longer dream.

I create a you of my own,

I feel you

As the wind within me.

In the flesh

You live within me –

My Gods

*

My father wanted to do so many things, to travel, to write, to love, to be happy. But this earthly body of his stood in the way of the soul that he was.

Body

I know

That the heart has a wound

And the wound is called Man

With a name and a brother and sister

With an address

And a life story

With lots of words

That at times I misrecollect

Then arrives that puncturing ache

And reminds me

How I am

Body

*

When we were children, my brother and I, at different times, my father would tell us bedtime stories. These were stories that he would make up at the moment of telling, with ongoing characters: The Blue Lion and a rabbit called Faffan (in Hebrew: Shaffan Faffan). Lately I have come to discover that The Blue Lion exists in many of his poems, and through it he wrote of himself, (the meaning of his name, Arie, is lion).

Throughout the years at often times when I do things, whether these are emotions or responses, whether the manner of speaking or way of action, whether a small movement or a gesture, I feel and see him within myself.

Flower

My movements within my son

Change everyday.

The place I take within him,

Brings up a place in him, within me.

*

In the day after his death I wanted to write some outline for a eulogy that I will say. A poem came out. It spilled out of me.

A eulogy to the most powerful man I have known, to my shielding wall, father.

Aba¹

As much as he knew how to love

He knew how to hate

As much as he knew how to enjoy

He knew how to suffer

As much as he knew how to laugh

He knew how to cry

As much as he knew how to receive

He knew how to give

As much as he was understanding

He was stubborn

As much as he knew how to be a small neglectable dot in this endless universe

He was total

As much as he was my father

I was his son

As much as he loved me

I loved him

Up to the moon I love you, he would tell me

Up to the moon and back, I’d answer him

And we never reached halfways

One-two-eighty, He’d say to me, encouraging me to go down a scary slide

One-two-eighty, one-two-eighty, one-two-eighty, I yelled to him

But he no longer opened his eyes

___________

1 – Father

Anan Kenig

December 2018

Almeria-Holon