Massachusetts 12, or Another Draft

In answer to a question on my last entry: no, I didn't write the poem thirteen years ago, the date is only to set the poem in context. Maybe this draft will fix that.

After the Assassination

"[The Israeli children are mourning publicly, because] they feel that he was their hope that they wouldn't have to fight in the army when they grow up” Yitzhak Rabin's grandson, Yonatan Ben-Artzi Philosof, November, 1995

It then occurred to me
that I had not yet taught my child
to pray,
as though I assumed God’s ear
extended to
her open mouth
for the moment
of her wordless years,
(when she and I
could not know
each others’ languages)
before

grief
could bring her
to my shoulder, begging me
to challenge death in her name – nobody goes away forever, right, Ima?

Instead, I whisper,
We say, Baruch HaDayan Emet
and we remember what he taught us…
teach her the words –
the bricks we use
in an attempt to build bridges
that will reach as far
as the cries of speechless children in the street.



*Blessed is the True Judge (Jewish/Hebrew blessing said in the presence of mourners)