Beloved, I fear the language of shame is Hebrew.
Once loss was all, now loss is hard to frame in Hebrew.

Yours is the well from which my sorrow springs,
your water, but the earth that steals the rain is Hebrew.

With you I have railed at the shuttered sky
and wept, yet know that tears are not the same in Hebrew.

In the wilderness Jews yearned for a home –
the home that we built, the home that we maim, is Hebrew.

Uprooting olive trees, scarring the soil,
we fight, crush foes like fruit, apportion blame in Hebrew.

Each body-bomb blown up and rocket fired
inscribes my anger when the land aflame is Hebrew.

Like the smear of dust on skin, grief mars me.
We brush off dust but who can brush off pain in Hebrew?

Don’t protest we’re not our brothers’ keepers:
the tale that poets wear the mark of Cain is Hebrew!

Witness our songs – I am yours Beloved
and you are mine – witness Solomon’s claim in Hebrew.

To resist complicity, ‘not in my name!’ –
how? when the root of my soul, of my name, is Hebrew.