Yitro: Six Days After Colleyville

I write these words
Six days after Colleyville
When a man was invited
Into a synagogue for warmth
And a cup of tea.
When during the silence of prayer,
The click of a gun was heard.

On the New Year of the Trees,
With nourishment being drawn up,
Grounded, on this earth,
Deep within the potential
Of what ultimate fruits
Will be harvested,
Comes a cry, 
All cries, undifferentiated.

The shofar cracked open creation
For all of Israel
At the foot of the mountain
And across the expanse of Olam.

The people,
Held for a moment,
Suspended in the silence of Aleph,
With all barriers broken,
Physical restraints
Of body and of blood and of bone
Set aside through shock
And because of fear.

Take that fear, Israel,
And what threatens to shatter;
Choose to use it as a Blessing,
As an Opening,
An Opening into the awareness
That we are all ever held
Within the Matrix of the Holy Blessed One.

A Midianite Priest,
A “stranger” named Yitro,
Came to teach Moshe
That Moshe could not,
That we cannot,
Do this life
On our own.
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