We are still here
Our light is not dimmed
We rise again and again and again
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We make it through fires
burned, but healing our scarsÂ
We keep going when the roads are uphill
breathing heavily, but still breathingÂ
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 earthÂ
growing eastward, westward
and up to the sky
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Heads high, spines straight
we take our courage from the ancestorsÂ
creating new worlds over and over
throughout their wandering
always searching for safety
always… searchingÂ
calling each new place home
until we are, once again, forced to wander
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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 workÂ
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 homesÂ
on boulevards in Berlin and Boston
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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,Â
to be like
everyone else
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Sometimes, we embrace
the foods we eat, the holidays we celebrate, the rituals we sanctify, the wedding couples held high in chairsÂ
the new lives we bring into this world
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Sometimes, we can just be
simply who we areÂ
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And then darkness descends once again
like it did in Pittsburgh and in Poway
and the cemeteries and other sacred spaces desecrated
Â
We all spend our lives dedicating ourselves to something, whether holy or profane or both or somewhere in betweenÂ
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But rededicating is a true act of resistanceÂ
We can claim something over and over again
as a form of sacred returnÂ
We can pitch another tent, build another grand house of worship after it has been debased
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Rededication runs through our veins
is in our DNA, shaped by both our traumaÂ
and our survival
We know who we areÂ
our stories are collective echoesÂ
and our dreams are filledÂ
with floating Chagall figuresÂ
rising from the ashesÂ
and swirling in a beautiful burst of color
towards eternity
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