Hello friends,
Last week, I shared a poem called “The Israeli-Arab Gardener.” This week, I want to share one of my own poems. I started writing this two years ago around the same time of year (hence the Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur liturgical references). I was angry. The world felt like it was falling apart, and all I wanted to do was scream into the void. I wrote instead, but the usual catharsis didn’t come. I left the poem alone until I could figure out how to finish it.
Last year, again around the same time, I came back to my poem. After getting some distance from it, I found a bit of hope. I added some new verses, but the poem still felt incomplete. Now, after another year of perspective, I find myself somewhere in between the hope and the hate. I added one final verse. I hope you like it.
The world did not go as planned. Everything fell apart. The center could not hold. Who will perish by fire and who by water? Who by sickness and who by war? By the millions, they perished, but we could not grieve. Something worse was always slinking toward us. We should only focus on the pain of others. Others should focus more on our pain. Don’t come to me with your questions. Find the answers yourself. No matter that without me, you won’t even know where to start. I hate it here. I love it here. Here is the whole planet if you try hard enough. But nobody wants to try. We want everyone else to do the work. And everyone else wants that too. One day, we’ll realize we’re all yelling about the same things. The meaning got lost in the noise. Before we knew it, the noise was everywhere. We’ve become a parody of ourselves. This is fine. You’re so vain. You probably think this poem is about you. That makes you angry, but you fucking love it. You’re salivating at the chance to rip someone’s head off, at the opportunity to get high on outrage and moral superiority. We no longer rage against the machine. Rage is the machine. It’s in the water. It’s in the air. It’s in the processed food and the equally processed media. Half the ingredients are fake. The other half are buried at the bottom of the box, long past where you stopped reading. Who cares? We’re all going to die anyway. Some of us sooner than others, whether by stupidity or dumb luck. Why don’t we stop fighting and enjoy the sunset? Why don’t we hold hands while the world goes quiet? Tell me you love me even though I’m fucked up. I’ll tell you the same. I’ll mean it. I’ll rip my own beating heart out of my chest if you ask me to, if it means we can whisper and live forever in the twilight. Dusk inhabits my dreams not as a setting but as the peace I seek. Live oaks dripping with Spanish moss cool the fires in the sky. A fever dream of normalcy. Quiet. Something so old it’s become new again. Broken pieces of glass coming together as a mosaic, the small shapes and colors all part of the larger whole. Even the jagged edges find ways to fit together. A canvas awash in a single color is not art. A song with only one note is not a story. A metronome is an entrance, an invitation to become a symphony. Repeated trauma transforms into a callous. Brute force cannot break it. It is already a broken thing. Salve dulls the pain of new injuries and knits the skin back together. Clean bandages cradle and protect the raw margins. The wounds weep; they expel the hurt within. Maybe we’ll never understand each other. My pain is not your pain. But frayed nerves burn no matter whose body they’re in. Hungry ghosts consume whatever is in their path. Let us feed each other willingly, offering full tables and fuller hearts. We have everything we need to make this place beautiful once more.
Until next time,
Yardena
WEEKEND POTPOURRI:
Currently on repeat
Speaking of mosaics, check out the magical street art of the Pavement Surgeon.
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