“How can you sing when My creatures are dying?” God said to the angels.*
But I am not an angel, said Miriam.
I am waters made bitter by enslavement
by the blood of baby boys
by mothers’ tears
and almost, I confess, by my own.
So now,
if I dance from relief
if I cry tears of release
it is not because I rejoice in their deaths
or take pleasure in the poetic justice
of waters made bitter red with their blood, their limbs—
I sing and dance because at last my limbs, my blood and my voice
are finally my own, and they are sweet.
*paraphrase of commentary on Exodus, ch. 14, v.30, p. 270 Hertz Chumash
To view my other poems and musings, please see www.renaissancewomankippot.org
