Here is the poem written and read at The United Methodist Church on Sunday ( see previous blog entry). The author, Mohja Kahf, is a Palestinian Muslim who read this in support of Temple Shalom. It was so moving in it's delivery I am at a lost to transmit the emotional energy it held on this historic occaision. Here is the poem written and read by a magnificent lady who I was most honored to meet Sunday night:
All Goodby Mohja KahfIn the end, it’s all okay,
I would like to reassure those of you
who may have been troubled
by Hajar’s vicissitudes
or the questionable actions
and sometimes disturbing language
in which they have manifested here
Out in the blue infinitude
that reaches and touches us
sometimes, Hajar and Sarah
and Ibrahim work together
to dismantle the house of fear,
brick by back-breaking brick
With a broom of their own weaving,
they sweep away the last remains
They sit down for a meal
under the naked stars
Ismail and Isaac come around shyly,
new and unlikely friends
Hajar introduces them
to her second and third husbands
and a man from her pottery class
who is just a friend
There is no more possessiveness
Later generations of girls and boys
trammel over everyone’s lap,
welcomed by more than one
mother and father
Massacring our children
at the altars of our greed and pride
is no longer acceptable practice
Sorrows furrow every face
This, in the firelight, no one denies
No one tries to brush it all away
with saccharine lies
or rushes into glib forgiveness,
disrespecting the right of the oppressed
to redress their suffering
No one claims to corner
the market of affliction
Everybody’s losses have been named
in excruciating detail as they deserve to be,
and mourned
Cruelties on every side
have been deeply and at length atoned
allowing the old family drama
finally to die
The grieving has gone on for untold ages,
frenzied and rageful in our immature years,
slowly becoming penitent and wise
Despite the abject pain
we have experienced,
no one wishes they could change the past
because of which we have arrived
at this transforming time
Hagar pours a subtle, sweet
and heretofore unheard of wine
Sarah laughs again, more deeply
It’s amazing how restored Abraham looks
Everyone, this time around, can recognize
in the eyes of every other,
the flickering light of the Divine
and it is like nothing we have ever known before
yet it is
what we have always known at core
I would like to reassure you all:
In the very end, in the fourth,
unseen dimension that has been here
from the very beginning, unfolding
just outside the limits of our perception,
suffering, not in its rawest form,
but distilled in temperate hearts,
takes us to higher levels of cognition
We break out of the cycle,
Here, Now, to higher life,
and it is fine
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