Sunday, April 15, 2007

To Be an American Jew in the 21st Century

To be an American Jew in the 21st century
is to be offered a choice. If we decide to look aft
and watch our children drown at the mall
as the path of centuries warps
from spirit to thing, our homes collection plates
for eating fruit with the luscious bloom of preservatives,
then we forfeit the generations.

If we choose not to remain silent,
but urge daredom, even at the water's short fringe
where the sand is suffused black, there
to sketch out the face of peace,
a mouth, a nose, an ear,
repeating our desire like a song of syllables.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I loved this poem Lenore, the images were so vibrant and spoke to some of the issues I care about and that I think our family is dealing with in our own strange way.
Debra Grace Khattab