1:40-ish AM.
Hot panic as I lay
safe in our warm bed.
I listened as my husband breathed beside me
lifted my eyes to the window above
saw the moon watching over us
blinking through clouds.
I thought:
How do you hear your spouse, your children, breathing near you in the night
with rockets rising and bombs falling?
How do you discern the movement of your own breath
with the earth violently shaking?
I could not go back to sleep,
consumed by the fire in my mind.
When you think you are destroying Amalek
blotting out the innocent too,
because you believe or want
to believe it will make you and your loved ones safer
Have you become Amalek?
[Not an accusation; a question.
We must search our souls.
What is our intention?
You, me, we, us?]
As we recall the screams of our beloveds at the hands of the enemy
and we remember our suffering and terror,
do not forget theirs.
I do not know the right answer.
I do not know how to end hatred.
When no one can even feel their own breath anymore,
cannot hear each other’s words,
cannot hear silence,
cannot sleep.
I know killing is wrong,
I know in the holy-of-holies-heart-of my-heart
that this cannot be the way to peace.
The sky grew lighter–
6:13am on the dot.
No lie.
He rolled out of bed.
The dogs followed.
For us, all of us–
time to breathe hope
into this new day.
