Don’t speak up
as they oust us from the theatres, the universities, the workplace
flood their paper with rivers of rhetoric
for perhaps they will punish us further
and we need to stay safe
Don’t make a fuss
as they pen us like pigs in the ghettos
laughing and spitting and beating us with sticks
but if I fight back, they will beat me further
so it is preferable to sit and do nothing
Stay in the line
while they bark us off the trains, march us through the forests
force us to lick their boots
a wrong foot, a raised fist means a bullet to the brain
but I won’t raise my fist
or even raise my head
Since God’s Sanctuary was destroyed
He exists only within one’s four cubits
and I know nothing outside of it
not even other Jews
Oh, my plundered, scattered nation!
You are not like a nation any more
not here, outside the land
Attached you may be to the tree of life
but not to the tree of my people
and the leaves have fallen to the ground
In these frozen forests of fear
none thinks further than his own survival
You could say we have become animals, with hunted looks
in our eyes
But even pursued prey try to save their herd
So don’t wonder how a hundred can pursue a myriad
for we are the ones being pursued
