THE BRAVE NEW LAND

It’s moving so fast, damn, sailing past me as I run to do its bidding the whole day long. It’s as if my head was not my own to hold onto, while standing in an alley in front of my house; where a conversation ensued about construction planning. With my head already hurting from trying to squeeze coronafied students into a form that had already come, the English with my wife was the most familiar thing to grab. Hebrew flew in hesitant spurts between the four of us, a Christian, a Muslim, and two Jews pretending to belong. Arabic poured out into cement bonding the air between them … and a plan was formed. But, my head was still flying overhead, not mine at all. So I left to walk to work through the ancient ruins left behind. Past the sparkling white tower, evil lurking inside, I kicked through the gate leading down. A new sewer had also been planned, so diggers pounded in step with each footfall descending, each step stolen from a world gone wrong. Guilty for leaving my wife home, I thoug

Iceland is melting. At the beginning of the summer my wife and I took advantage of living in Israel by traveling abroad as the coronavirus waned in our country. In Iceland they also had a lull in viral infections, so we hastily made an itinerary and quickly earned our vaccination post-grad degrees. Then we jumped onto a plane bound for Europe. Arriving in Iceland via (a very) German passport control in Frankfurt, we received our campervan and headed to the foot of an erupting volcano. Thanks to wonderful friends in Israel with connections to wonderful new friends in Iceland, we spent our first night near a pasture of horses across from the home of our neighborhood-volcano-guide for the day – such a blessing! This was the beginning of a two week trip " driving the RingRoad ," finishing up with the Golden Circle. Our trip included cooling magma, exploding mantle, falling water, frozen trolls, melting glaciers, land dwelling puffins, extinct herring factories, turf houses, the r

Mishka Fet has an eye to the sky and sees a lone creature living on a floating fish scale swerving about in midair, dry, and hovering. The creature is Ravikum, who believes that the land he sees far down below him is really a giant fish swimming on the surface of a giant sea—so, our story is partially about how Mishka Fet is forever captured by the image of Ravikum, and our story is also about perceptional awareness, and dreaming of fish. Our story begins here: "In the beginning, in a time before knowing, there was a man who stood on the edge of a world. Mishka Fet looked up to the skies night in and day out, at the twilight of being, but he almost never saw anything worth mentioning. Up until once, when in a sharp little corner of vision, Mishka saw a scale flipping. From origin it must have been fish, but in reality it could not be so. For fish swimming most often occurred far down below.  Mishka blinked and missed nothing as it passed overhead, “It cannot be that something else

As a new English teacher I am required by the Ministry of Education to take a new teacher workshop for my ongoing training. It is bureaucratic business at best; at worst a sausage factory spilling out unknowns and just more mess. Oy, a student in 10 th just now texted me that her Moed Bet was scheduled for another Gush, to which, having stopped writing this, I replied: My schedule shows Gush B - lessons 1 and 2. But, no matter, whenever you have English, you will be taking the Moed Bet —English Lit., tests… wow. I just finished grading the rest, from both Gush’s pupils a pile of damn tests. That’s the hardest part of my job, I can attest, grading and writing, commenting and scoring … that is definitely the worst and the best. Actually, there ‘is’ that Zen that creeps in from the edge of the classroom, slinking in and only then becoming relevant—when students notice life moving in front of them, when they exert themselves into a realm of the living. Yes, there are other realms too, w

Through ruins from not too long ago, I descend into a glen daily on my way to teach. The way leads me past an Arab artifice now destroyed, Christians who built a mosque for visitors now gone. The way leads onto a path between cacti, grown to each side and interspersed with carob, straw, and incense. Oak sings down below, I always know, as I walk down step over step to the work I’m learning to know; but … this time was different. Tingles I felt from the sides of my path, tickling me along arms, cheeks, and brain. Something was different, something was wrong. Looking down I saw nothing, looking down there was nothing to see; just tingling in my mind. My sense and learning said spiders, but nothing was to be found. I wiped the sensations away each and every time, but remembered it to teach as I finished walking down to my new norm, that morn. Arriving at school I met students willing themselves to learn, and spoke of my walk down to school and said more, or less, not too sure. For, I re

The water did not flow. It was too dry to play. So, we sat in the bowl all that hot and unhappy day. I sat there with Love. We sat there and stewed. And I thought for us both, “How I wish we weren’t on the menu!” It was too dry to get out and too warm to stay in, so we sat in the bowl doing nothing at all. All we could do was to: float! Float! Float! Float! Love and I did not like it, a tidbit not even. And then something went SQUISH! How that ‘squish’ made us flip! We looked! Then we saw it; we looked and we saw it step in with us! The upright walker! It stepped into the bowl with us, only to sink ...    For a printable PDF download of the rest, click:  doronoll.com/garden-stories

It rained from above and the earth gushed water from inside its depths for a long 40 days. When the deluge ceased, what remained of the human spirit continued 150 days more, sailing, and eventually disembarking from the wooden ark they isolated in and onto freshly formed land. There, a man named Noakh planted a vineyard into the earth and then grew it into wine. Having drunk, embarrassed, our tragic forebear retired into his wife’s tent as not to be found. He was discovered by Kham, and as Noakh had exiled himself where he couldn’t be seen, Kham, the father of Canaan, doomed his offspring for all of time. For Kham imparted to his brothers the story that was uncovered, employing a zeal born from tragedy; to “say” is one thing but to “tell” is quite another.  From Kham descended two nations: on the one side Mitzraim, a place born of social limitation, a class system with narrow design. And, on the other formed the people Canaan, whose world disintegrated along with their view as each new

Rubbing my eyes, using the knuckles of my hands, my vision exploded into purple irises blossoming between grains of sand. The moon, as we know, is full of this knowledge as it swings overhead. It fills my eyes with vision and laughs down on me, as in another new profession I stumble within. It’s seen it before, the moon overhead, full and boasting—and again it will no doubt occur. My mind hears the laughter often as the vibrations descend down, with smiles all around. This is my very own megilah, heard as of late, causing some angst but mostly most profound. The purple irises were meant for an oil painting that I’m currently making, but instead or at least inclusive of, the irises spilled out here if only to shed. This place that I consider home is both small and once large, contained within a space no greater than a skull, but singing out praise vibrating room in which to tell. The telling goes like this: Upon a time once mentioned, the story unfolds in a pristine dimension. In the cr

Static Zoom —  It’s a strange new land, having become quite small, but living in it … um, I just can’t put my finger on it. Is it shrinking, or am I growing? Like trying to hold a tiny pin-nail while hammering to connect one piece to the other, my thumb and forefinger, the extremities of me, always take the brunt of my exploits into the unknown. Seeking adventure in life doesn’t help either—walking and riding the desires I wish for with almost total abandon. So, it goes to reason that the far reaches of what I consider ‘me’ must take quite a beating. This is the fringe of my existence, this place where I begin to blend with my surroundings. Maybe it’s also why I keep changing my professional aspirations—my desire to be something more—or … yeah, it’s probably just me exploring something else. I began teaching because I thought it would be a great way to connect with real people, and not just the social presences that haunt the internet. Then Corona hit. So, I scrambled to recover the pa