Cemeteries desecrated,
Headstones toppled and smashed.
Even in death unable to escape
The irrational genocidal hatred,
Even laying in our graves
You can’t just let us be.

Communities threatened across the land,
Threats and nothing more, save anger and fear.
Is this a game? Or a rehearsal?

Nero fiddles as adviser Antiochus
Readies the swine to sacrifice
Atop the Temple Mount,
And fires up the furnaces
To burn more than just Rome.

Empty words echo from
The Capitoline hill,
Does the Reaper need to appear
Before Caesar and the Senate act?
Or would even that move them
If it were merely the life of a Jew?

Rachel is inconsolable
Eyes puffy and red,
Cheeks wet and raw,
Cut by the tracks of her tears
Cried for those who are no more.
From dawn to dusk she cries out
Yet there is no answer.
From sunset to sunrise she weeps
Blanketed by the black of the night,
Her only question: Why?

2/27-2/28/2017