Hello, friends.
As you can imagine, it’s not easy to find the words to describe what we’re going through these days as a country and as a people.
This Friday afternoon, I finally found a few. I tapped out the following poem on my phone as I finished preparing for Shabbat, and posted it on Facebook. When I turned my phone back on after Shabbat I discovered that it had been shared more than 100 times, which is unusual for my stuff. So apparently it resonated, and I want to share it with you, too, in hopes that it will bring more people comfort and clarity in these times.
Wartime Multiverse
On the first plane of existence
My 3-year-old daughter
Pulls my sheet over our heads
And giggles that someone is coming
And we need to hide.
On the second plane of existence
I am under a bed, motionless
While glass crunches under heavy boots
And bullets spray the walls of our safe room
On the third and fourth planes—
Same scene, different century.
In one I am my great-great-grandmother
Under a mattress in Odessa.
In the other I am setting a basket
Adrift on the Nile.
On the fifth plane I am on a work call,
And we’re talking about conversion rates
And my colleague’s voice breaks
And on the sixth, I am watching Netflix
And my parents send me a bomb shelter selfie
On the seventh, I am pouring coffee
And I’m wondering if the bamboo
Covering our neighbor’s patio
Would take our weight
If we needed to get out that window,
And on the eighth, I’m in a shooting range,
And the instructor is saying
To aim for the center of mass
And on the ninth plane of existence,
I shut my eyes as the planes roar over Gaza
Drowning out the muezzin
And I hug my children and wonder
If we’ll survive this time
And on the tenth,
I am in a tunnel underground
Staring down the barrel of an AK-47
Holding a crying child who isn’t mine
And the entire world shudders
And I can’t decide whether I want it all to collapse
Or not, because she might have a mother to return to
And on the eleventh, I am folding shirts,
And wondering if I could still shield
My sons’ bodies with my own
Even though they are taller than me
And on the twelfth,
We are out of milk and I am wondering
What to say to a friend
Whose husband doesn’t come home.
But
Right here,
Right now,
The light glows orange
Over the hills of Bethlehem,
And it is almost time
To light the candles.
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