for months I have
thought
of how I will
answer my grandchildren
when they ask me,
“what did you do
to stop it?”
when it is slaughter
wrought
by the hands of
my people
all are responsible
I have donated
money
a
privileged response
I have gone to vigils
self-soothing
and I cannot
march
anymore.
for decades I
have marched, and every passionate step
against wars and
for human rights
to no avail
yes, I pray
and I believe
but we do not
have enough
pure hearts among
us, it seems,
to bend the arc toward
peace
or not enough of
us
are trying
"I sit inside the
shell of the old Me
I sit for world
revolution"
but I cannot sit
anymore
and the only
thing I can think to do
is set myself on
fire
I look at the
famous Vietnamese monk on fire
almost everyday
as a plea as a
protest for an end
to suffering and
oppression
on June 11,
which is also my
wedding anniversary,
"maintaining his
meditative posture"
a friend poured
fuel on his body
and he lit a
match
as a crowd and a
photographer watched
and he burned himself
to death
three people have
already
lit themselves on
fire
and burned to
death
to stop this war:
Aaron Bushnell,
Matt Nelson, and an unnamed 61-year-old woman
(how like the
Torah to have an unnamed woman)
Edit: now a fourth attempt – Samuel Mena
"Many of us like
to ask ourselves, “What would I do
if I was alive
during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South?
Or apartheid?
What would I do if my country
was committing
genocide?
The answer is,
you’re doing it.
Right now."
What could be
more Jewish than fire?
Sometimes holy,
sometimes strange or forbidden
always a force of
destruction and creation
purification
black fire on
white fire
a body, white
fire, a soul’s scream, black fire
together the
prayer and the protest and the burnt offering and the Torah of the act
lighting one’s
own body on fire
in desperation
in horror in
grief in guilt
to purify
what of my children
and my parents?
what will the people
who need me and love me
take from sifting
through my ashes?
four people have
already lit themselves on fire
to no avail
what hubris is it
to imagine
my body burned
will make any difference?
my body is not
special
my heart is not
pure
is this poem
enough? when I am asked
what I did, what I
am doing, can I answer
"I wrote a poem"?
the bile it
brings up
is the answer
like a healthy
adult who soils themself on the way to work,
I go about my
days, tend to my responsibilities,
eat and walk and
love while people suffocate
and explode and
burn and grieve
by the hands of
my people who are lost in a desert
and then I look
at Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese Buddhist,
and I am soiled
and stuck
and exhausted
a
privileged response
is this poem a
suicide note
from the
traumatized, corroded soul of Israel?
not in my name
all are responsible
who shall live
and who shall die?
who by fire and
who by collapsing building?
who by starvation
and who by neglect?
who will be
serene and who will be tormented?
who will die in
captivity and who will live in captivity?
who will turn
their head and who will wring their hands?
who by fire? who
by fire? who by fire?
if I light myself
on fire, will my body’s candle purify our hearts?
will my burnt
offering stop our hands from igniting other bodies?
will a pillar of
fire rise from my head to the sky and light the way
out of this
desert of ashes?
Quote 1: Allen Ginsberg, “Why I Meditate”
Quote 2: “Why have some Buddhist monks set themselves on fire? Buddhism for Beginners.”
Tricycle magazine online.
Quote 3: Aaron Bushnell’s final Facebook post before his death by self-immolation. Newsweek
magazine online.