A Prayer for the State of Israel
For millennia we memorialized You through longing;
For centuries our ancestors wept for You;
For mere decades have You existed,
(Despite your enemy’s wanton design).
You turned the swamp into agrarian riches,
The hills brought to life with human-nature’s song
for all creatures, solar panels
and silicon buzzing and humming.
And yet;
This prayer is complex;
As indeed, your name means
“One who struggles with God,”
For there is nothing as sweet as the taste of your honey;
and yet, we have two wailing walls now.
Number One: representing the greatest
of human potential;
Number Two: rising out of necessity to preserve that ambition and the lives it inhabits.
And yet~
(260 Dancing Youth Disappear as Red Paragliders
Float above the wall and descend upon them)
And yet.
When my feet walk upon
your soil,
your stone,
your sidewalks,
And my eyes gaze upon your rising glass cities,
defying hatred, jealousy and destruction;
Your life song calls to me
all hours of the day and night,
for I feel most alive when I am within you.
Israel, you are a modern marvel;
a tragic complexity;
a contemporary meditation
Of what it means To Be
(And what will become of us)
And yet…
May You and all those who feel
Inspired by your Impossible Existence
Find Your Name a Blessing,
and May All who Dwell
Amongst you and Protect you and Alongside you
Be Blessed.