VI. In G-d We Trust
TRUST
Trust is the silver filament
sustaining the universe
and the family of Man,
powerful as spinning galaxies,
fragile as a spider’s web
broken like the severed spine
paralyzing all,
but for a miracle to reconnect
as trusting souls.
– Elhanan ben Avraham
A NEW CONTRACT
I agree with my blood to sign a new contract.
With the blood of my brothers the previous one was cancelled,
with the shrieks of women it was torn.
Even the lease that was signed at the beginning of my creation, in the blood
of my navel,
Was burnt like paper along with everything else.
Its empty words are scattered on nameless roads –
“Trust” is crushed and smeared on the asphalt.
“Man is good” is scattered on the grass,
The sprinklers of the kibbutz are still watering it industriously, perhaps
it will compost faster.
“Morality” was violently abducted on pickup trucks full of gloatings of
bloodlust and predation.
Beaten on all sides, unrecognizable from blood and fractures.
But I agree with my blood to sign a new contract.
I will no longer close my eyes, never. Even when I sleep on a loaded gun,
My eyes will remain open.
And you, my grim reality, on your part…
– Imri Perel
translated by Esther Cameron
LANDING AT BEN GURION AIRPORT
What an effort have I made
To get from a sheltered spot on the Spanish Mediterranean coast
To my targeted house 12 kilometers from Lebanon
And I have no bomb shelter!
But I have an olive grove
And we will pick the olives and carry them to the press
And surely the daffodils have already opened
And maybe the anemones as well.
I will pace the goat path, I will count the flowers
One by one, even in danger of raid,
until their number exceeds the number of missiles
aimed at me … that someone intercepted.
Thanks, “someone” dear,
Whether God or a little soldier;
Under an iron dome
The lacy flowers bloom
I'll walk the velvety valley paths, I shall not fear.
– Sabina Messeg
translated by Esther Cameron
TRUST
October 23,
2023
Indeed the refusal of trust
in the echelons of intelligence
in the organizational echelons
in the echelons of the leaders
in the echelons of the ministries
between the public and the ministers
between these and those
between those and these!
Indeed the refusal of trust
in the echelons between the strategic and the tactical
the ceremonial and the operative
the right and the left
between ministers and rebels
traitors and loyalists
between these and those
between those and these!
And the open-eyed people, the eternal people
trust, absolutely, in their trustworthy army
in the host of fighters, young men and fathers
children and mothers giving them strength
as they lay their lives on the line for Israel
with their help she will arise and be redeemed.
– Haggai Kamrat
translated by Esther Cameron
A SONG OF BRETAGNE
Savage coasts of forbidding cliffs and gargantuan boulders plunging into the
ocean beside neon lime algae covering beach pebbles left stranded between
tides. Secure harbors fattened by sugar and slave trade, favorite haunts of
shifty mariners more likely than not corsairs of a king. Menfolk drawn away
to 'sailoring', fishing, soldiering and trading, their women left behind to
keep the hearth burning. Victorian mansions at seaside resorts frequented by
Brits trying to get back at least a temporary toe-hold of what they lost
ages ago.
The landscape is owned by feudal towns and tidy villages with sturdy stone
cottages whitewashed or left untouched, revealing irregular Breton granite
blocks in tones of charcoal, old rose and burnt butter, crowned by black
slate roofs with a rectangular chimney on each shoulder like muslim graves.
Lonely farmsteads are scattered across washboard rises and dips, stapled
into emerald chess boards defined by gently waving stalks of maize, summer
wheat already being cut and baled, meadows where livestock graze and stands
of wood beech, oak, chestnut and pine.
A homeland of fierce religiosity and pride in patrimony as ancient as the
menhirs * scattered about or lined up in rows, inhabiting whole fields like
Chinese terracotta warriors, left by Celts whose language still rolls off
the tongues of wizened grandmothers and school children. In sometimes
unexpected corners, medieval walls embrace half-timbered houses and
flamboyant gothic temples to a catholic god, fairytale chateaux with
manicured gardens Alice might have played in, formidable fortifications
built to discourage an assortment of uninvited guests.
On so inhospitable a chunk of rock, strangers are not easily brooked and
there is little patience for rule of law foreign or domestic. Jews were
grudgingly allowed entry then expelled when convenient for those with power,
readmitted and hounded out time and again, the Nazi round up just a final
betrayal. No wonder such outlanders have rarely set down stubborn roots.
Torn between so much wild beauty and such a stony heart, I sing this song to
you, Bretagne. My quest has run its course -- I know you for the siren you
are.
– Bob Findysz
* A tall standing stone erected throughout western Europe
during prehistoric times. Stonehenge is the best-known example.
9670 Trust
I trusted them, the European elite
surely enlightened, 'twas hard to swallow
seeing thousands of broken windows
I put my hopes in America, the land
of the free and the brave, surely it was
to be different, yet the image is tarnished
seeing thousands shouting out slogans
I trusted, but no more
– Hayim Abramson
THE BRIDGE
I.
Driving on the 35W Bridge
The limestone guardrails sturdy – with creamy intaglio
the Mississippi beneath, downtown Minneapolis
by the reliable locks,
recalling that afternoon
when my dad phoned that his broken back
had an explanation: cancer had robbed
his bones of integrity.
This bridge, I knew, was the state
of the art replacement for that collapse
that caused drivers to plummet
into the Mississippi or onto its riverbanks.
Civil engineers, inspectors,
all believed in material science.
But taxpayers and lawyers were left
to do the rebuild and shift the loss.
II.
Was it then, or after the banks failed,
was it all these cross allegations,
the infidelities; was it the jobs with benefits,
that abruptly ended like a relationship
too dependent on transaction.
Was it Assange endangering lives
or like Daniel Ellsberg, spotlighting war,
while faith jumping the guardrails
Many banked on unimpeded prosperity
that ended like a picnic in the soaking rain,
or when the raging salvos streamed through tunnels
until belief has been suspended
like a Ferris wheel stuck at its zenith
because the mere assertion of faith
is ridiculed as some exclusive ticket
from Paradiso.
– Michel Krug
Mindy Aber Barad
FIVE POEMS
1) Clouds
Years ago
I called them “Clouds of Glory”
Protected my son
Our sons
From The sun
Ominous clouds have followed
And followed
And protected
I hope they never tire
Of their job
But I do
Trust
That they will
Bow and retreat
Gracefully
Before the
Great Day.
2) Trees
Grow so thick
Together
No way around
What?
No path
Impossible.
Trust
That on either side
We have not veered
From the path
It’s simply the
Long-short way
Around
Obstacles
That were
Never
Really
There
To begin with.
3) Blush
As the almond blossoms deepen
From innocence to blush
I wonder
Can I still trust them
And the birds that call to me
And call the trees home.
Will they protect it
Or will they abandon their nests
When the blush turns blood red
4) Explorations of Planet Denial
“If you need to be there,” she said, it’s a good
place.”
Trust me – it’s a great place.
Planet Denial
I have prolongued the “day before” indefinitely.
for a long while
a ‘good place’-
no I do not
remember
the details
of the day before,
but everything must have been fine.
Give me a day that is all Sabbath
it is That day
the day before,
that place,
when all is calm,
all is possible,
positive.
Health, strength, faith –
a day of wholeness, one-ness.
A place of Trust.
5) Broken Magic
broken trust
my voice
a broken glass
mirror shards
with muted frames
brittle
firey
broken magic
*
ON TRUST
Leaving Goshen quickly at night,
past the blood, still fresh, on the door post,
that spared her life,
the breath of the Angel of Death
lingering in the air, loud with the wailing
of each Egyptian mother
for her lifeless first born,
Miriam might have taken anything on her way out—
a comb, a shawl, an ankle bracelet
Some momento of Yocheved, her mother
working together fearlessly
at the birth stool delivering the boy babies
from Pharoah’s harsh decree
that would have erased us entirely…
But she chose instead a timbrel, knowing
they were going to the land that was promised them
but not knowing how and when they would get there.
But she was sure she would strum the strings,
that the women would dance and sing
because she was, of course, a prophetess,
believing she would lead the throng
in a great song of victory
when visibly behind them,
the Pharoah’s chariots and horses
and all his calvary were swallowed by the sea.
II
And now, in a dark time when it is hard not to despair
when our beautiful boys are falling day after day,
or returning to us to be put back together again.
It is hard not to despair
when the enemy has surfaced everywhere,
oblivious to our history, defending our massacre,
in such a perverse distortion of humanity,
and when the deafening silence of our friends
painfully reminds us we are a nation
destined to stand alone
to bear witness to God’s intervening
presence in history.
And now in a dark time,
we are still forbidden to despair,
though we deserve our sorrow,
our mournful cries, each tear-stained pillow,
But as it is written, in the “Song of the Sea,”
this tribute to Miriam’s trust we repeat every day
to affirm that God has not and cannot abandon us.
When that appointed time comes we will sing and dance again,
with a multitude of horns and strings and tambourines,
a great song of victory, echoing from the hills,
our enemy on its knees conceding defeat.
All our dearly beloved whom we laid to rest
will rise again and dance with us.
And the world will be in awe
of God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm,
as it was then, and as it will be,
and we will see signs and wonders
beyond our capacity to imagine,
when that Divine promise will be kept,
If not today, then surely tomorrow.
– Roberta Chester
FROM THE DAWN OF MY
CHILDHOOD
From the dawn of my childhood she dwells
In my heart, in my soul,
My faith.
Strengthens me
And lights my path.
Believes in the King
Of Kings of Kings.
In the bands of angels.
With time I learned to believe in myself.
My faith is my candle
The crown of my songs
I choose faith
Without conditions
I choose
Life.
– Aviva Golan
[untitled]
I trust that which I see.
Even though I wait patiently
For the righteous to stand up and proclaim
Their trust in Gd is strong again.
The flame that grows
inside of us.
The passionate cries
that have called out to the world
Must be like
a sacrifice to Gd above.
The one we trust
The one we love.
We can only count on Him
To free
The captives
And calm
this chaotic sea
Of hatred and antisemitism.
To fix the deeply root chism of hate and angst
Not against us the Jews
But against Him.
I trust that Gd
Is the answer
To our cries
To our fears.
He wants us to lean in
on him, you see.
Because He is
the one and only
who holds the only key
To Moshiach and Eternity.
The truth, I trust, will set us free.
May it be speedily in our days.
I trust that which I see.
I see the goodness.
And miracles.
That Gd has given to me
Every day
Gd loves me.
– Annie Orenstein
THE TENTH OF TEVET
I trust (although it seems most men who dwell
in hell believe there is no heaven), still
I trust. I pray (though many of us will
assert there is no heaven, only hell),
I pray here, nonetheless. For who can tell
us not to pray and not to trust until
there's proof that Providence exists? We'd kill
ourselves by our own hands, we'd kill too well.
For surely there is trust and surely there
is prayer. How strange it is — although we're told
that hell is fire, I find it's ice. How odd
it is — that in the blizzard of despair,
amidst the freezing winds and numbing cold
of doubt, that I should meet You now, my God.
– Yakov Azriel
SHOULDERS
"… but as for
me, I shall put my trust in You." (Psalm 55:24)
Tired from playing, my grandson rests his head
Upon my shoulders, as I hug the child
And pat his back; his disposition mild,
My grandson says nothing, but sleeps instead.
Amidst his sleep, he laughs; as if this bed
Of shoulders had transformed, or reconciled,
His ragged nightmares, ill-cut, torn and wild,
To well-sewn dreams that gleam with golden thread.
O Lord, do You agree to let me rest
My head upon Your steadfast shoulders, too?
Do You agree to hold me and embrace
Me as You stroke my hair and face, to nest
Me in the cradle of Your arms? O You
In whom all children trust, grant me this grace.
– Yakov Azriel
ROCK AND REDEEMER
In the shepherd’s dream of the world, a pasture
of blushing sand that froths in ebb and flow.
Suspended megaliths like sentinels
ship their shadows across landscape in majesty
of infinite progression. Praise sky
that holds clouds like soft flour. Praise melody
of silence and sunlight. Praise faith
that defies gravity, our most ancient language.
– Rikki Santer
JOB’S WIFE
“While this
one [this messenger] was yet speaking, there came yet another one who
said,….” (Job 1:16)
“Our herds of oxen, donkeys, camels — gone,
While swords of fire have fallen from the sky
To slay our ewes and rams.” She paled, withdrawn
Within her soul’s frail shell, but didn’t cry.
For she and Job were taught to trust in God,
Who gives the righteous water from His well,
Who leads His flock with a shepherd’s guiding rod,
Who shows the pious heaven, never hell.
But then she heard the words that couldn’t be true:
Not one, not two, not three, not four, but all
Her children killed, all dead, the baby, too,
Who only now had learned, poor thing, to crawl.
And when she lost her faith in God, she cried
Bitter and long, as when her children died.
– Yakov Azriel
David Weiser
FOUR POEMS
92.
Time is. And I have reached
Old age with little wisdom
And less intelligence.
Time was. And I have mouthed
Too many empty phrases
And words devoid of sense.
But time will be, I trust,
When my fallen soul regains
Its innate innocence.
187.
The apples of ignorance
Blush pink at being picked
And claim they aren't ripe.
But grapes of knowledge bask
In the fading twilight
And flash a purple smile.
They thank the sun and earth
For sweetening their taste
That lingers on as wine.
264.
The figs are ripening,
And soon the fruit will fall
When the stem grows weak and thin.
A woman's pangs cry out,
And the time approaches
When new life will begin.
Though now we only notice
Omens of evil strife,
We trust that good will win.
267.
I wait for the messenger
Although I know the message;
It says we must believe.
And I have sworn to do so
Although my soul may shrivel
And drift like a falling leaf.
Yet I will contemplate
The source of eternal life
As long as I can breathe.
ODE TO FAITH
To the synagogue I attended in Delray Beach, Florida, before
making aliyah
You Anshei Emunah
People of Faith
Keeper of faith
Guardians of the Tablets
With tears
Fluid
Flowing
Flying
Gliding
Squinting
Whatever it takes
Not just to preserve
But to transfer to each offspring
To each bud
A gift of faith
As inheritance
A pleasure
A privilege
A joy
A celebration
– Esther M. Fein
LUCKY
Most of my friends
took as gospel how G-d
made 7 lucky, not just
in dividing the 7 Seas
from the 7 Continents,
forming 7 Natural Wonders
and resting on the 7th Day,
but also the 7 Luminaries,
plus the 7 Archangels
to combat the 7 Deadly Sins,
so imagine the joy for Jews,
especially my little sister,
raised to reverence
Passover and Hannukah,
when the Beatles twisted
and shouted, long hair
shaking in that craze
before race riots and ‘Nam
tested our lifelong faith,
how they harmonized
vows to hold her hand,
and how she could trust
that all their loving
covered 8 days a week.
– Richard Krohn
CURRENCY
IN YOUTH WE LUST
IN TIME, ADJUST
IN BREAD WE CRUST,
IN CRUMBS, DISGUST
IN RACE WE BUSSED
IN RAGE, COMBUST
IN RAIN WE RUST
IN DROUGHT WE’RE DUST
IN SOD WE’RE THRUST
IN G-D WE TRUST
– Richard Krohn
BETRAYAL
"Circumcise
the foreskin of your heart …" (Deuteronomy 10:16)
Did you betray your children's trust in you
And seal your heart with glue? Did you betray
Your wife, who cherishes the words you say,
And tell her lies that you insist are true?
Did you betray your father's garden, too,
Uprooting trees he grew? Did you dismay
Your mother when you laughed and threw away
Her love, betraying everyone you knew?
Did you defraud the crescent moon, deceive
The ocean's waters and deprive the air
Of countless clouds through crafty, cunning art?
Then turn to prayer, and as you pray, believe
That God, who circumcises hearts, can tear
Your foreskin's faithless treacheries apart.
– Yakov Azriel
SOME SPRING COME AUTUMN
“No more
can salt water yield fresh.”
—James 3:12b (RSV)
Enough of falling in, then
falling out
With others ever ready to deceive.
So much for any benefit of doubt
For ones who offer little to believe.
I simply lack the zest, the zeal to try
To get along with those I cannot trust.
I wish them well, and that is not a lie.
From day to day I pray for them. I must.
– Jane Blanchard
BROKEN BOND
I accepted your word,
Your plea for forgiveness, for I
So wanted to trust you, even
Though you once betrayed me
Spreading your vicious lies and
Wounding all that I hold dear
Yet, I chose to honor the sacred
Bond that we once shared
But today I see that you have
Struck again, raging and
Destroying our peaceful ways,
Leaving our lives in tatters, as
Broken as the limbs of Mother Oak,
Tossed about during a violent storm
And now I have come to the painful
Realization, that while there may
Someday be forgiveness, this time
There will be no forgetting, no hoping
For this bond has been broken forever,
Smashed into pieces and scattered
To the ends of the weeping earth
And we can never go back
– Dawn McCormack
Not wide the chasm was
Though none could leap it,
Richly the harvest grew
With none to reap it,
Not false the promise was,
Though you did not keep it.
– Esther Cameron
TRUST/BETRAYAL
If you keep looking back when you walk
you may trip, fall in a ditch
or completely miss the land you longed for
If you run forward and don’t look back
you may lose all hope of peace
for like many, you have been betrayed
You bear the initials carved in you like bark on a tree
but those you have betrayed, you do not see
for you are too far in a distant wood.
– Susan Oleferuk
MY POLAR STAR
i.m. Cathy
Young (1953-2022)
Ursa Major
Great Bear
Big Dipper
The Plough
By any name,
the constellation’s pointer stars
allowed voyagers to find Polaris
and steer any course,
certain of true north.
While the spinning Earth
caused other stars to appear
to wheel round a fixed point,
the North Star
was trustworthy, constant.
My sister:
reliable, constant,
a trusted guide
and unique light
through darkness.
– David Olsen
SAFE-KEEPING
Secrets, mostly whispered,
I shared believing she’d
guard them as important words.
As soon as we had a falling-out
my private feelings were aired
and gave her power. At thirteen,
respect for my friend was shattered.
With attempts to embarrass, influence,
she challenged: ‘don’t you trust me’?
My parents guided
me through this confusion.
A certain characteristic
was important, now, for one
who’d become special.
I was friendly but guarded.
At twenty-two, beneath a chupah,
my husband and I silently vowed
that our union was going to
permit us to feel safe when
our quiet emotions heightened,
also, personal whispers would not
become conversation for others.
Trust.
– Lois
Geeene Stone
WHO KNEW
that love
could fill a well, so deep
and fortified? What draws
the heart to another so vividly
and warmly? The years take
their toll on a highway
to a destined end where
we are beginning again.
The shock of white hairs
on your once dark curly head,
shatters memories of our youth.
Pale, unwrinkled, you strengthen
my heart with your inner calm.
Your narrowing blue eyes
look into mine all too clearly
after all these years. Our comings
and goings strengthen the arc
of a rainbow which spread over us
in the widespan of life.
To see you lights me up,
like the yellow roses you brought
this morning. Decades of sharing, husband,
with your once youthful bride
blossoming to a wife
fully in stride; our lives embark
on that great divide, sparing
no couple.
– Paula Goldman
TRUST
Give me your trust, my love, and nothing more
to calm twilight incontinence, and still
the unremitting pulse that’s named not love
but bears a guileful self-effacing name.
Entrust yourself to me and I to you.
Our whispered promises of shared devotion—
whatever else they be—are steadfast stones,
on which we edify ourselves and build our love.
O Sweet, my Sweet, let nothing them remove.
Let no force claim our battlements improve
besides those old time-honored stones of yore:
give me your trust, my love, and nothing more.
– Ashby Neterer
WHAT I KNOW
To love is to know
that beyond all the cages of the screens
inside you is a little bird
all soft fluffy down
in all shades of color
and all its standing is on the branch
of the wings of the spirit.
It flutters with longing
to pick up seeds of love
from the palm of my hand.
Even if your song scorches
and your beak stabs me
and even if I am hurt
and pay you back in kind –
we must remember
that you have a bird inside you
and so do I.
– Iona Tor
translated by Esther Cameron
IS THERE A CHANCE FOR LOVE?
A Jew once wrote to me asking if I would write a book on the subject of the
love of G-d, with stories from past times and from the present day. Indeed
there is nothing more important and lofty than the commandment written in
the “Shm’a”: “And you shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your might.” And yet it is not easy for a
human being to love G-d, blessed be He, with a perfect love, because of the
sufferings one undergoes along with the good one receives. It seemed to me
that the love of G-d was the province of completely righteous people, so at
that moment I didn’t know how to answer him.
The next day, as I was waiting at the light rail station near the Mahane
Yehudah market, I heard a woman say, “Thank you so much for the money you
brought me today! I really appreciate it.”
I saw that the speaker was a simple woman, about fifty years old, who looked
like one of those who observe the traditions without being strictly
Orthodox. The wires of the earphones dangling from her head told me that she
was talking on the phone with someone. “I love you so much, without you I
wouldn’t have a life.”
Clearly she was talking to her husband. It was pleasant to hear that there
are couples who love each other so much – like a breath from the garden of
Eden in these turbulent days. Here, in this noisy, obtuse, alienated, crazy
generation, was love, like a rose among thorns.
I walked away a little distance from the place, not wanting to eavesdrop on
a conversation between lovers.
The simple woman came closer to me, as if it was the will of Heaven that I
should continue to listen to her.
“Never leave me!”
This was going up a degree; I became curious as to the secret of her
domestic peace, how in this world of separation, so full of temptations, was
it possible to preserve such an innocent love between man and wife?
While I was still thinking, I saw that the woman was being approached by a
man her own age, an aging Jew, somewhat untidily dressed as befits an old
Jerusalemite. She greeted him with a slight nod. I couldn’t understand where
the passionate love had gone. They looked like a husband and wife who were
very much accustomed to each other, and nothing more.
Then to whom had she spoken those lofty words?! I wondered.
Then I reproached myself for letting myself think about the happiness of
other people. Unless this leads to a short short story, I’ll be left with
only a sin and a transgression.
I moved off, but was surprised to see that they were following me, as if the
heavens were forcing me to hear some story.
The husband stepped up to the orange kiosk of the state lottery, and his
wife waited for him at a distance of twenty paces, close to where I was
standing.
“I have no patience with him!” said the woman. “He throws away our money on
lottery tickets1”
I was startled. Here I had hoped to find love in the world, and it turns out
that she suffered because of him and was attached to someone else…
“Sovereign of the world, Father dear, could you perhaps let my husband win
the lottery just once?”
Suddenly I realized that her beloved was the most abstract of all beings,
Whose infinite greatness passes understanding, and Whose presence in the
tiniest details of our world is impossible to grasp.
That is the true domestic peace, my heart exulted, to be constantly
connected to the supreme partner of all couples, to love Him and to be
connected to Him. Then there is a chance for love between man and woman, and
all for all the other loves that scurry around on the paths of broken
hearts.
As I searched on my cellphone for the number of the man who had asked me to
write the book, I saw the Jerusalemite husband leaving the orange lottery
kiosk with a light step, walking toward his wife who waited for him like a
bride for her groom, under the magnificent canopy of heaven.
– Oded Mizrachi
translated by Esther Cameron
AMULET
This will protect you
though all betray you:
the word keeps faith
though it be broken.
Though friends fall silent
the unseen tokens
will lead you home
to the House of Song.
Esther Cameron
A PRAYER FOR SUSTAINING CONSTANCY
Grant us a holy grammar for the gullible,
tender warrants for the displaced, and for those who only watch,
edification.
Give us talent to extract from the babble gladness,
give the protesters water and the anti-protesters, water.
Bless our impatience with the antics of senators.
Give us adepts who make truth out of misdirection, endeavor
out of burnt forests, seeds out of sin.
Give us the pluck of ants and peacemakers.
– Florence Weinberger
LITTLE BLACK GIRL
for Jean
Toomer and Martin Buber
She came from the wind
like a mirage
on a cold, blustery morn,
well-worn sandals
flopping gaily.
“I like your dog,”
she said.
“I like yours, too,”
taken by her smile,
her mien.
I’d rarely seen Black folk
in the hood,
our hood,
of Czechs, Poles,
Hungarians, and the like,
but there we were,
two souls
communing.
I don’t recall the details,
just the grace
of someone braver than me
taking a risk,
thinking
it might be kids
who save the world.
– T. J. Masluk
THE GIFT OF TRUST
for the
returned hostages
I am going to
The synagogue of the sea
where salt and water
will wash me
and cure me of self-loathing.
But afterward
I go home to you my friends
Where I find the gift of trust
You, whose pain is still here,
whose voice had almost been lost
in memory’s silence,
give me the gift of trust,
a gift best bestowed
by those who suffer
and come home to be loved
by those who leave lies behind them
who are not deceived by the world
even as it despises them
laughs loudly at their troubles
or says nothing happened.
I am lifted upward
by your gift of trust
even as you raise yourself up
out of the dark nightmare of your sorrow.
– Estelle Gershgoren Novak
TRUST
let us be true / To one another
Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
We do not have much trust in one another
So must rely on those whose calculations
We can predict, as we predict the weather,
The course of falling rocks, or the rotations
Of stars and planets. So with them we make
A world where we can find a den or perch
Secure and firm, save when, by some mistake,
Foundations shift and leave us in the lurch.
Yet times have been (we think we can recall)
When on the scattered shone a sacred vision
And pledging “All for one and one for all”
They rose to act, holding beyond division
To what was truest in both self and friend,
Trusting in that, whatever fate might send.
– Esther Cameron
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