The Wailing Wall, Revisited

 

A human being

 is not symmetrical.

— Srečko Kosovel

 

1.

 

I gently touch you now

  not the way I did

eleven years ago —

 

not with that yearning

   for faith and peace,

but with a private prayer

 

for inner calm, care,

   stillness; and

for forgiveness and love.

 

The gleaming hand-worn

   shine on Jerusalem stone,

where the public merges

 

with the private,

   where prayer and passion

collide and unite —

 

where a certain kind

   of kindness changes

to another kind —

 

where a certain kind

   of passion changes

to another kind

 

of desire. It is

   a blessing of time —

eleven years is a lifetime.

 

2.

 

As I tried once again

   to wedge in

a piece of coded-paper

 

into the cracks

   and joins of The Wall,

I discovered

 

another paper piece

   behind the new one

resisting my approach.

 

I tried to force it in —

   the more I tried

the more impossible it got.

 

Failing, I now tried to

   take out the old paper

that prevented my will,

 

take out that piece

   to resize

my own new prayers —

 

but the longing

   of past years resisted

to dislodge the old.

 

I prised out

   the old folded sheet —

it looked weathered

 

and yellow

   like the local stone’s

sun-stained ochre.

 

I opened it —

   it was the same one

I had put in

 

eleven years ago.

   Time had preserved

memory,

 

preserved my wishes.

   Was I the same then

as I am now?

 

Was the feeling then

   more sincere

than now?

 

Passion for life

 never wanes for some.

New love

 

like old love

   balance

their inherent truths.

 

3.

 

Here, gun-slung soldiers,

   pilgrims, children,

and men in black garb —

 

move forwards

   and backwards —

their axis, their waist —

 

a symmetry

   that instils and heightens

their own faith —

 

a symmetry

   I cannot hope

to aspire to,

 

as I am —

   like Kosovel’s man —

not symmetrical.

 

Jerusalem, 2008

 

~ Sudeep Sen

 

Sudeep Sen is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and ‘one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene’ (BBC Radio). His poems have been translated into twenty-five languages, and have appeared in numerous major international magazines and anthologies. He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS and the editor of Atlas.

In January 2013, Sen was invited to the Nobel Laureate Week in St Lucia to present the prestigious Derek Walcott Lecture and read his own poetry. A special commemorative edition of his work, ‘Fractals: New & Selected Poems|Translations’ 1978-2013, was released by Derek Walcott himself.