The Stones of Lifta

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(39 44 48 1)>The poems of Marc Kaminsky's </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(39 44 48 1)>The Stones of Lifta</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(39 44 48 1)> 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. -</span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(39 44 48 1)>Richard Hoffman</strong></p><p>Sample:</p><p></p><p>HINANI</p><p></p><p>Unworthy as I am when I saw</p><p>footage of my friend Menachem climbing beneath</p><p>the Jerusalem hills with an old man-</p><p>a displaced person-an Arab</p><p>who guided him into the ruins of his home</p><p>in Lifta I felt something</p><p>become as clear and actual to me</p><p>as if for one pulse beat I heard</p><p>a voice speaking to my heart.</p><p></p><p>Call it the divine it is the voice that calls</p><p>to us once or twice in a lifetime.</p><p>We recognize it immediately and answer Here I am</p><p>for we remember it from before</p><p>we were born and remain ready all our lives to go</p><p>where it sends us. It spoke clearly</p><p>and distinctly as I sat with Menachem</p><p>in my Brooklyn office watching</p><p>his unfinished film it said to me Go</p><p>to Lifta accompany your friend to the emptied village</p><p>of Lifta walk beside him as he treads carefully</p><p>around the boulder that blocks the winding path up to Lifta.</p>