Candles

“If we all do as our kindred have done
and refuse to fight for our lives and for our ordinances,
they will quickly destroy us from the earth.”

- 1 Maccabees (2:40)

“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land:
will never be purged away; but with Blood.
I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”

- John Brown

Listen,

in these cold nights,

voices ride the wind:

Ave Marias uttered

at a bedside altar

a murmured i love you between a couple

in a tent under a viaduct

the prayers of a child whispered

into the carpet of a Mosque

the war cries of Water Protectors

camped near a pipeline

meanwhile, the faces change,

but the story stays the same:

He shed much blood,

and spoke with great arrogance.

The people mourned deeply

in every community…

young women and young men

became faint…

Even the land

trembled for its inhabitants…

and police joke about brutalities over lunch

and troops gather at the border

to unleash tear gas on children seeking asylum

from unnatural disasters in Honduras

(where U.S. troops are still stationed,

while more wait in Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Japan, and all across the planet)

and bombers fly routinely over China's waters,

while Chinese children compete with computers

to make more computers

and wages everywhere drop

like bombs

and families around the world open empty cabinets

while perfectly good food sits on the shelves of stores

until it is thrown into dumpsters

and the dumpsters are locked.

and shiny shops spread through the city like boils

while rents soar

and more and more

residents move out (to where?)

and the unhoused gather on the corners

and outside our grocery stores

and places of worship

for the citadel became an ambush

against the sanctuary,

an evil adversary of the people

at all times.

On every side of the sanctuary they

shed innocent blood;

Because of them

the residents of the city fled;

she became a dwelling of strangers;

she became strange to her offspring,

and her children

forsook her.

Her sanctuary became

desolate like a desert;

her feasts

were turned into mourning,

and storefronts close,

and factories rust,

and leaded water runs through our taps,

and another shelter is shuttered in Uptown,

(the list of friends I pray for grows longer every day)

and Lew and Diana take their children

and teenage grandchildren,

and now their infant great granddaughter

into their small apartment

while violence spreads and closes in

around everyone I know

           Alas! Why was I born to see this,

           the ruin of my people, the ruin of the holy city,

           and to live there when it was given

           over to the enemy…

           Her temple has become like a person

           without honor…

           Her infants have been killed in her

           streets, her youths by the sword of the foe…

           All her adornment has been taken away;

           no longer free, she has become a slave.

           And see, our holy place, our beauty,

           and our glory have been laid waste…

And see how they destroy us

de-story us       file

and defile us         turn our visions into

his       / story            of our lives

caught in their net    /      worth

until the star of David represents Apartheid

and the stars and stripes look like babies in cages

and Lady Liberty seems to be shouting Heil Hitler!

and the Scales of Justice stand for currency exchange

           and in this world,

           what does a Menorah mean?

           or the million lit-up mangers?

           or the eagles on our currency

                      (the money that multiplies 
                      as it kills off the actual eagles)?

           Will Harriet Tubman tolerate

           her face being placed on a twenty-dollar bill

           (her likeness woven into the very sinew

           of Andrew Jackson’s on the other side)?

           And who will remember, this December,

           as they light the Chanukkah candles,

           the murder of Fred Hampton in the night

           and who will light one for Wounded Knee,

           and Standing Rock,

           and tell their children why,

           at the camp of the seven council fires,

                      The U.S. flag was flown inverted
                      because a nation is in peril
                      when it places its first people last
                      and values the deadness of oil
                      over the sacred waters of life? 

                      Who will tell the story
                      of the veterans who went there
                      to kneel at the feet of hundreds of nations

                                 And who can explain
                                 why the flag with a serpent is waved
                                 by Zapatistas in the mountains
                                 and the government that hunts them?

                      Or why the rebels in Chiapas
                      cover their faces with masks
                      and their bodies with rifles

           Or why John Brown ordered rifles

           to be shipped west in crates labeled “Bibles”

Or why, tonight, when we light these candles,

we think of these courageous and their deeds

That we may never forget

the battles they fought

when all other choices failed

And so they learned the proper use

of both prayers and weapons

                      so that one day
                      only prayers might still remain

For these, tonight, and every year,
we light and burn these flames:

One

           for John Brown

One

           for Harriet Tubman

One

           for Fred Hampton

One

           for Standing Rock

One

           for Palestine

One

           for the person without a warm place to go tonight

One

           for the children born in the cold

and One for us,

           that we may become worthy

           of this prayer

           for you,

           and me,

           and all of us

           who (re)dedicate ourselves

           to the land that gives us life

                      who light candles
                      in the darkest of times

                      and in the most dangerous
                      of places