(These are the words of
My great grandmother,
Feigele Rachel,
Once known as
The Saint of Hester Street
For her hand in
Messages passed
From hert to heart
Across the barrier oceans:
As she might know
You all should know.)
"Time is short, so short that
It soon will end for us,
Lest we take the moment and
Remember who we are
And have been,
Lest we heed the voices
Of our mothers,
Ten thousand years
Of mothers,
Who bore us to this
Place in time,
To Earth's Heart, the
Desert we have made.
It is now that we
Must lay that heart bare,
Open it to every being
Who has wakened in the sweat
Of knowing wrong and rage
At how this pass has come.
Even the very least of us,
Even the greatest of us,
Even the straw in the wind
And the blossom that
Will be the olive.
Earth's Heart must be opened
To each by each,
To the least and greatest,
To the joyous and
The weeping.
For the length of two
Nights journey by the swiftest
Afoot, sunset to sunrise,
In every direction
Earth's Heart shall be returned
To each and every of us,
For we have all been dispossessed:
Mind and soul and the making
Of knowledge into those fruits
We might have the will
Not to wither with our touch.
We shall each bring or send
A handful of fertile soil;
We shall each bring or send
A handful of fresh water;
We shall each bring or send
The teaching of our children,
The knowing that there is but
One us, and every hand lifted
Against any of us is a penstroke
On our decree of condemnation to
An eternal desert.
We will mesh our wills to
Make this place, from the
Nearest to the farthest,
From the lightest to the darkest.
And if the birds return, the
Animals of field and hearth,
The flowers of our history,
The fruits that once nourished us;
If no hand or weapon is raised to
Spill the living blood of
Earth's Heart, of which we
Are each a mote,
Then there will be time
In which forgiveness may
Bloom, and the mothers ranked
Behind us on their bleeding feet
May hold each others' sons to
Hearts that join to make
This place where rest begins.
And if we fail,
So will Earth fail,
And we shall as surely
Perish as the stars die,
Though long before
Our appointed time.
We are but one:
Cast out the names
By which you know the other:
Become yourself,
And take the name
No one speaks:
We...."
