93 - After Tisha B'Av

In December, 1980, I stood with my daughter, in cold rain, at the Western Wall. Weeping at the sight of it, I searched for prayers as I fingered a length of red yarn, traded for the coins in my pocket. I touched the ancient stones, this remnant, this reminder, and wondered at the emotion it had pulled from me. I was exquisitely aware that my husband stood on the other side of the barrier, that this moment could not be shared with him. I was aware of the women who stood beside me, of their murmurs, of the way their hands caressed the Wall, just as mine had done. I was aware of my daughter, a recent bat mitzvah, of her adolescent embarrassment at her mother’s tears.

And now I am aware of my sadness. I can never return to that place. My health prevents a journey of such a distance. How could I have squandered that one meeting with tears? Or were those tears my honest prayer?

Ninety-Three

After Tisha B’Av
In Memoriam: L.K.

Driven away or drifted away,
We all reflect the Temples’ conflagration:
Some with daily melodies to You,
All in the marrow-born tears that spring unbidden.

Driven away and drifted away,
We sing Your songs in our faces and our children,
In the half-remembered sighs of our great-greats,
And in the ongoing definition of our exile.

So many ways to praise You,
So many ways to survive exile,
Until, turning, turning, the City is retaken,
Again the Stones are washed with tears of our joy.

But our roots, into more common stones, are deep;
We sing Your Name in many places.
Drifted by human vagary, driven by human cruelty,
Our whole hearts are divided: Home and home.

Unwillingly and unwittingly, we left Jerusalem:
Turn us back to Your golden city,
Praising from new houses,
In time or in place.

Let our hearts dwell in two time zones,
That Your Name is ever on our lips.