JERUSALEM LAMENTS
by Greg Friedman
William Blake, The Emanation of The Giant Albion, Object 41 detail from “Jerusalem” 1804 to 1820
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From the south I hear their cries: David, Wala’a, Yochered, Aya, Oded, Muhammad. They call from the tunnels, the dead unburied from beneath the ruined hospital where mothers search in the dust for the lost. From the north I witness the terror, from the south I suffer the terror, with my sons I bear the terror, with my daughters I carry the terror, the whistle of the anonymous messengers, raining their sentence of vengeance: alarm across the city, dread beyond the border, anger unchecked by reason, retribution fueling the advance, memories etched in blood staining my land gifted, inheritance claimed, my land usurped, inheritance ignored— my land where only the stones now cry to me its mother. I hear them from captivity, I hear them from subjugation, I hear them from internment, I hear them from Nasser Hospital, from Kibbutz Nir Oz, from Deir al-Balah, from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, from the shrines sacred to my children, from mountain, mosque, temple, basilica, from the holy rock, from Herod’s enduring walls, from the ancient sepulcher, from the sudden sepulchers of rubble, from the entombing walls of Gaza City. I hear them all from mountain, mosque, temple, basilica, ancient in my mourning, young in my anguish, vigilant for their outcry, I wait for the silence, I despair for the peace, I remember and watch and listen.
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Greg Friedman is a Franciscan Friar who travels frequently to the Middle East, leading pilgrims. He has been a magazine editor, radio host and pastor.
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HAIL, MARY
by Maria Lisella
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Buon giorno, buen dia Maria
Full of grace and wisdom and power
The Lord may be with thee, and you
May be Blessed among women but
What about the children? Not the one
In the womb that has been consecrated
As the son of God, but God, your god,
My god has many sons, daughters all
Around the world. They are not all blessed
Some are cursed and lost and under a pile
Of rubble in Ukraine, Yemen, Israel, Palestine, Gaza;
Others live in the darkness of the blind, are
Plagued by hallucinations, cursed with spasms
Of a mind that plays tricks on them all day, all
Night. Imagine a predator behind you, in your
Shadow, silent, stealthy, looking over your shoulder
Or under your bed. You cannot see but you know
They are there and they mean you harm for no
Other reason than you are where you find yourself
Not for an act you perpetrated on someone else,
Just for being who you are. The luck of the draw?
And Holy Mary, Mother of God, do you pray for
The innocent as well as the sinners? The pilots,
The soldiers firing artillery rockets, are they too
Prayed for? Rockets with ranges of 30-50 miles, fired
In barrages for the most effect, the most damage.
Are they too in your prayers to god and which god
Might that be? What does that God look like, what
Does that god think, plan, why does that god never
intervene? Humans shooting hate and rockets blindly
into Ashkelon, Beersheba, under the eyes of Israeli
drones … range is crucial for rockets, for prayers too.
Pray for us sinners and for the innocent, for my own son
Living in a world plagued with demons he cannot see
or touch or hear but knows they are there, so music
and words come to him as if a shaft of light in day
Or night, raises his voice above the din in his brain, to
Feel the lift above the iron dome of paranoia, the upsurge
Of spirits that haunt, and fly, and invade his small cot in an
Institution with cinder block walls, netted windows he can’t
See but knows they are there: the limitations, the lack
Of liberty, the outside in; the other sons and daughters
in Gaza, or Yemen or Ukraine are bombarded with a panoply
of air power used in a steadily escalating series of attacks.
What I wish for my own son is comfort, warmth, knowing
There is a meal, a roof over his head, a dog at his feet, a
Sun he can feel but not see… Mother of God, what do you
Wish for your sons, your daughters now and at the hour
Of their deaths? When will your god hear your pleas or
Have the mothers and daughters been silenced to the
Tunnels, the basements, the streets, have they lost their
Voices, their powers to heal, now and at the hour of now?
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Maria Lisella is the sixth Queens Poet Laureate and an American Academy Fellow; her work includes Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). She is a member of the Thursday Morning Poets, Brevitas and co-curates the Italian American Writers Assoc. literary readings.
How lovely to read spiritual poetry on a Sunday morning.
Thank you,
Varda