Yom Teruah

Avi Schild

The weeping of the shofar
For a son lost―
The mother’s wail,
Simple and wrenching,
Rachel cries for her son.

This year lay down your Shofar!
It won’t help anyway.
Its call will be drowned out
by the roar of tears
the mothers have shed for their children,
the sons and daughters of our people.

Shevarim and Teruot flood the heavens.
Some composed though most are distraught.
How did we get here?

So far away
From simplicity and purity
Love and intimacy
A world of everlasting good.

We try to hear the soft, quiet cry
Beckoning with no more than a whisper
My children
My love
                 Where are you?

How do we return to that purity,
in this universe of brutality?
To that simplicity,
in this field of complexity?
To Godliness,
in this world of Godlessness?

I can hardly hear the soft and quiet cry now.
The howling winds
The earth-shattering tremors
The raging inferno
Are drowning it out.

Return…