Poetic License: May 2001 Online Poetry Journal

Untitled
anonymous

The Beam
by Sara Ost

learn to love
by Dex

Something to Think About...
by Michael Rivera

Winter Falls
by McKenna Catherine Kiefer

Untitled
by Stephanie Carberry

THE MARK OF HIS LOVE
anonymous

"I Once Was Lost"
anonymous

Untitled
by Deskrete

Birthright
by Nina Simon

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Birthright
by Nina Simon

It arrived in an envelope.
Slender, formulaic
my name stamped to the front
like a calling
falling open like sand
and I received notice that
I have a birthright to Israel

I might fill out forms
report date of birth
and gain access to a land
worth wandering
whose borders are crossed
in careful transactions
whose mountains are lost
and reluctant to yield
whose rivers roam, quenched
by stony silence
holding back some fear
of violence
they have not always
flowed blue

There's a man on the corner
clanging his bell
to tell me the end is near
I hear his opinion
and well, my response
I might speak it if I wasn't
busy gazing at the Temple
praising the stone
knowing the beginning
is growing closer

There are women in Israel
kneeling at gravestones
of whores, sisters
daughters to a barren land
a hungry land
scraped rough in the image
of a tired hand
where the sun stains
the roads with rubber soles
of prophets dancing over coals
dates and figs fall
like toads from the sky
and a child asks the Wailing Wall,
why do you cry?

Jewish law forbids
tattooing of human skin
because the flesh is hardly
the place to begin
when the message is a choice
you didn't get to make
when the witness is a picture
you didn't get to take
tears there are strong enough
to burn through rock
and to talk of salvation
we consult the relation
of blood to religion
of blood to a nation

My birthright came written
in the pen of my people
in the ink of a country
that calls me to arms
where soldiers are marching
like lambs to the altar
clutching cold weapons
protecting my birthright
with all of their wrongs
sacred songs of the desert
and damn
did we have to wander so long?
for a brother to leave a brother
for a god to pluck another
all it took was a calf
all it took was a mountain
for them to hand me my birthright
written in stone
refusing to forsake me -
you must fight,
and die at home

But I don't want the
company of bloodshed
angels' fury filling my mind
like I was one of the chosen
Israel
did I ask for you?
Who painted you on
my forehead?
Who scraped you
into my blood
spat the title
Child of God into my cereal?
I can't handle
bones for breakfast.

I'm not ready to heed your call.
When I die,
I'm going to stick to the ground
of the home that I know
of the people I've found
and I won't be looking for you
I don't want to collect
on this birthright
of salvation
I'm not ready yet
to give up what I'm saving
to hedge someone else's bet

Israel.
Be careful what you teach
your children.
Dayenu
"it would have been enough"
for Noah, who built the ark
that broke the human race
it would be enough
for Moses, who stopped
when the angel of death
kissed his brother on the face
but it is not enough for me

I am the child who left
the child who will not
stop to be enough
I am still wandering, Israel
and where I'm going
isn't where I've been
it's not the end
but the beginning is farther
the history
it is not enough
the land
it is not enough
I am still wandering, Israel
away from everything
enough promised me
because I guess we all
have to fall from grace
sometime
you've got to hear the sound
of rock hitting rock
sometime
I guess I was chosen
for more than milk and honey