I wrote this poem within the year after Ronen died, before we put up his stone, sitting in the grass next to his kever (Hebrew for "burial site"). I have come back to it many times over, every time I visit and have to muster the courage to leave, and sometimes when I'm home, hundreds of miles away, wishing that it were easy to just go visit him.
If it resonates with you, please feel free to use and share with attribution. - HL
Pulled
by Hinda Eisen Labovitz
I’m feeling pulled to the graveyard.
Like a magnet,
The closer I am, the stronger I feel it.
I yearn to be close to you,
To see you.
Even though,
I know,
Below the muddy blanket of earth
All that’s left of you
Is an empty shell.
Your soul is with God
Who only lent it to us,
But the cold part of you that is in the ground
Is the part that I created
With my body.
My faith tells me your soul was
Just on loan,
But my heart—
My heart?
You were my heart.
I smile outwardly so the world thinks I’m whole
While really,
Inside,
I’m standing on the narrow edge of a void
Feeling the exhaling breeze from within
Calling me to take the plunge
Or just fall.
The hardest step
Is the first one I take
Away from this void
Back toward the world
Trying to avoid the whiplash
As I pull,
And pull—
And pull away
From the magnetic center
That threatens
To pull me down
To where you are.
My only hope of survival
Is the warm, outstretched hand
That locks around my wrist,
Pulling me away
From you.