What to make of the broken bits of the year, crumbling fast away like the broken bread we scatter on the rushing Narrows?
A gull’s cry pulls the heart towards the murky shore, away from the horizon, hazy, unclear.
A year bitter as an onion, our people still in the narrow spaces.
We cast our breadcrumbs like so many former friends, the ones who scolded:
If only you wore the keffiyeh as I do, and walked for peace.
If only you could be more like this Jew (not the Jew you are).
If only you thought like this Rabbi, or this Jewish writer, or this blameless Jew
(that I listen to), or that dead Jew (who I read).
If only you could be, like, a United Church type Jew.
Former friends, former cafés, former theatres: do you miss us at all?
Torah teaches what kind of Jew.
U’v’chein, we walk to the water again, casting our sins (the sins of us all),
So we can return upright, stiff-necked, saying their names aloud:
Omri, Naama, Ariel, Agam.
Amen, amen v’amen.
Comentários