We are still here
Our light is not dimmed
We rise again and again and again
We make it through fires
burned, but healing our scars
We keep going when the roads are uphill
breathing heavily, but still breathing
We wake each morning
We rest each night
We teach our children ancient blessings
hoping their meanings will take root
building fortification from within
and extending like the branches of a tree
taking strength from the earth
growing eastward, westward
and up to the sky
Heads high, spines straight
we take our courage from the ancestors
creating new worlds over and over
throughout their wandering
always searching for safety
always… searching
calling each new place home
until we are, once again, forced to wander
The journey has been long
from the Middle East to Spain to North Africa
to Eastern Europe to Australia
to Cuba, the Dominican Republic
to the shores of New York and California
in small towns where we settle for work
or to be close to family
We pitch our tents, we thrive in shtetls and ghettos meant to unravel us as a people
we live in tenements and apartments
and kibbutzim and grand homes
on boulevards in Berlin and Boston
Sometimes, we try to run
from who we are
wanting so desperately to fit in
wanting to belong, to be left alone, to live without fear, to give our children a better life, to enter spaces formerly forbidden to us,
to be like
everyone else
Sometimes, we embrace
the foods we eat, the holidays we celebrate, the rituals we sanctify, the wedding couples held high in chairs
the new lives we bring into this world
Sometimes, we can just be
simply who we are
And then darkness descends once again
like it did in Pittsburgh and in Poway
and the cemeteries and other sacred spaces desecrated
We all spend our lives dedicating ourselves to something, whether holy or profane or both or somewhere in between
But rededicating is a true act of resistance
We can claim something over and over again
as a form of sacred return
We can pitch another tent, build another grand house of worship after it has been debased
Rededication runs through our veins
is in our DNA, shaped by both our trauma
and our survival
We know who we are
our stories are collective echoes
and our dreams are filled
with floating Chagall figures
rising from the ashes
and swirling in a beautiful burst of color
towards eternity