The Violin Tree
Rosenberg, Joel
THE VIOLIN TREE JOEL ROSENBERG A while back, my father got some letters from some people with our name. Some pictures were enclosed and they were in a hurry. And my father read them and he...
...He went out in the yard and carved a tree into a violin...
...the rest must die...
...I asked him what was wrong: did he want them not to come...
...And what a tree...
...a smiling pair of newlyweds, our name...
...The ground would tremble when he got that way...
...Joel Rosenberg teaches Hebrew literature at Wesleyan University...
...From that day on, I knew that my father was God...
...He threw the letters in my lap and shouted: "Choose one...
...And my father read them and he cried...
...The letters rested on the floor for weeks: a baker and his wife, three kids, our name...
...One can live...
...It plays, at night, a wonderful and piercing melody from off the northern wind...
...It casts a long, black shadow at the start of Sabbath, when my father, restless, is out breaking the cedars of Lebanon...
...a physicist who wished to be a gardener, our name...
...Our name is carved into my father's tree...
Vol. 2 • February 1977 • No. 5
