Descent

This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

“In the middle of prayer, the atrocity at Kehilat Yaakov synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood Jerusalem, the terrible desecration today is going to sear into Jewish memory. The fight for Israel and Palestine turns into a bitter and blood-soaked religious war of attrition.” — Zachary Braiterman

To which I respond: “It’s already a war of political and military attrition and has been for decades if not more. Death on all sides – horrible beyond words – and for Palestinians in much, much greater numbers. Don’t Jews understand that in a war of attrition where Jews are involved, Jews, even while praying, die too? So enough with death and the prayers after that go nowhere. Justice isn’t a prayer.”

Descent

In Jerusalem

the heart is not a metaphor
I wonder
is prayer?

In Jerusalem

here we go
again again again

here we go
before before before

In Jerusalem

our prayers are offered
so the grieving
may be comforted comforted comforted

we mourn
so that others
will not die die die

In Jerusalem

the dead are like stacked chairs
they no longer breathe

the dead are darkness without light
that prayers cannot rescue