I am so sorry

That they've burned down your home

Left you standing upon barren ground

Cast stones through sacred things

They shouldn't have even touched.


I am so sorry

That this ugly world

Uses fear as ammunition

Never paying mind

To how you must feel

When used as the target.


I am so sorry

That people have 'opinions'

About these tragedies

Even turning well-deserved eulogies

Into slippery slopes.


I am so sorry

There were people screaming

Just when you were trying

To rest.


And I am so hopeful

That you will reach such magnificent heights

That they will never understand.

“Thy people shall be my people”

                                          -Ruth 1:16

Smoke rises here from foul Gehenna’s fires
Fires set by souls twisted like cold barbed wire
Sole argument of ideologies
Strung geometrically from hate to hate

Smoke rises here; soft ashes fall as death
Torah, Mishnah, and Gemera – and us
For without the Word and the People Israel
We are but wraiths, and darkly blown about

O Israel!

You are the broom tree in the wilderness
The Tree of Life who shelters all with love
You are the tent of Sarah and Abraham
And we are blessed who find refuge in you

My heart paces in an abandoned cage
that still holds the smell of lions ****
and human decay

They took my house from me
and He
abandoned me and the early seed

Oh how
love loses to profession

and I lost both
for something that may be
traced back to my blood
even though
I have never even been in a Synagogue
or prayed

It doesn't matter to the ones in
crisp black, green, and grey

The word I hear
from the birds tweet
animals are being imported
from Germany

This cage is not an idea home
but it has kept me safe
but now
I am truly alone
due to what they think is my faith

I must survive
for the little one inside
otherwise
this would be the end.

In that synagogue
That was my home,
I buried myself
Like pieces of Rome
Forgotten by many
But mostly myself,
They made me
Put my heart on a shelf

When they strip you of yourself,
And tear you down,
For the sake of "growth"
And the sacred ground
To expand their nation or self-hating
Fools
And continue their selfish dialogue
Of riches and jewels