a poem...

I want to start this blog off with the poem that inspired its title...

Another "Dayenu"

I wasn't there, but I remember
barbed wire fences. And in the shower,
my lungs tighten,
and I cry and gasp for air.
I wasn't there,
but I can see their faces,
because when they burned bodies in ovens,
the faces on those bodies etched themselves
in the minds of future generations
so the memory would never fade away
as the unborn had yet to remember
and thus they could not forget.
I wasn't there,
but the hands of the dead plead through the decades,
to touch my face,
pull tears from my eyes,
and when that is not enough
to paint images before them,
And at night when I cry,
they gather together and watch me
and I think they are thankful
that I wasn't there
but I remember.

And I remember the other story
the one to give us hope
once we were slaves, but now we are free
rocks against dynamite and poison gas
in a ghetto in Warsaw
and a pronouncement that
"the Jewish quarter of Warsaw no longer exists,"
but it wasn't true. we were still there.
Because a Prounouncement canNot erase a People
and neither can dynamite
or poison gas
or ovens
or bulldozers and checkpoints.

Once we were slaves, and now we are free
but
this is not a victory song.

To be free
Dayenu
It would have been enough.
Then why,
on this night,
do we build barbed wire fences
call bulldozers protection
and pour a sea of soldiers into the desert,
while another People fights with what they have
and wishes for someone to come
and part the sea
so they may pass through
and find liberation

why,

Even Pharoah responded to the killing of his first born son
but we dress our first born son in army green,
and tell him that at 18 he can have his first real gun
and yes, perhaps he will be killed,
but it will be in the name of justice.
But a death by any other name is still a death,
and a Holocaust by any other name is still
too much pain for words
and the name of justice loses meaning
and I struggle not to lose hope
or lose myself in shame
simply because if I am lost
I cannot speak up.

If I am lost
I cannot ask why
why on this night do we build barbed wire fences
and shoot those who try to cross them
even if they are children
and force women to give birth on jagged rocks
because the hospital is on the other side
of the checkpoint
and bulldoze homes
and sometimes people
if they are in the way
and why
don't we all remember
being on the other side
of barbed wire fences.

So I answer the hands
which plead through the decades
and tell them yes,
I will work to tear down the walls
because this time it is my people who build them
and when I tell them this
the hands
the eyes
the faces
let me be
to do my work.