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the July 4th rat a tat tat
fireworks finale sounds
no holiday hotdogs here
only a fusillade of bullets
our porch door
creaking
no longer a sign
of lazy summer
now suspicion
is all it brings
I could be you could be me.
Washing my body privately in the shower
feeling safe and protected/violated and
ripped apart.
I could be you could be me, cooing
my baby to sleep in a safe and protective collective settlement/butchered, beheaded bleeding corpses piled up
in sacred living spaces.
“Are you still going?”
Asked by a friend as I pack my bags
For a trip that’s been promised a year and a day
A trip long discussed
And oh so desperately needed
“Are you still going?”
In light of recent current events, and ongoing ones
Because to go is crazy
It’s not safe, it’s not the right time
Praise the fallen world
and its dreamy terrors.
Praise the false certainty
of unflickering leaders
and their certain masses.
No one knows better.
My cravings crave solitude.
My cravings crave space
It is too early and too late to dream.
My sister-God braids my hair for
it has grown since the mirrors wore black.
It is too early to die, too late to be born.
I have carrots to chop, soup to cook, a child to read to.
The soup tastes weak; it is mixed with lost time.
Uncle Yosele, may you rest peacefully
outside Tel Aviv in the makeshift hospital
where cousin Bati watches over you.
She told me how you hid under a car
for two days without water,
how you saw your son Ron massacred
holding the hand of his daughter, Sarah.
Letters. Black on white. They usually adhere to their two-dimensional habitat. Sedate, well-behaved. But what happens when they leap off the surface and issue blood-curdling screams?
That is the case this grey morning. My head reflexively snaps to the side upon seeing the words on my phone, my gaze turning away, scanning the room desperate to latch on to anything but them. It’s 7am and the notification that’s just appeared at the top of the screen confirms the death of eight soldiers.
My five-year-old son is currently wearing his army uniform costume we bought him for Purim nearly three months ago.
Since then, he has taken every opportunity given to him to wear it. Little religious boys wear their suits on Shabbat.
Not my son.
He wears his chayal (soldier) costume.
They sing.
At the stupid o’clock
when
even Sun
hasn’t
got up yet
but only opened its eyes,
stretched out and yawned
these irksome creatures already
tweet
chirp
peep
sing
their dumb happy songs
and don’t
let me sleep.
I live in Canada, many miles away from Israel and Gaza. I am a committed Jew however, ensconced in thought everyday about my fellow Jews fighting a war for our people.
I’m very much aware, and repeat this regularly, that our Israeli brothers and sisters are on the frontline for all Jewish people, everywhere. On Yom HaZikaron, we are extraordinarily thankful for that reality. My boy is going off to university at 18. Yours is going into the laneway and hollowed out buildings of Gaza.