(Author’s note: I live in Prague, Czech Republic and teach at Charles University. Try as I might, I could not express in prose my thoughts about the violence in the world and particularly the violence here, in Prague, on the 21st of December, especially given the fact that I was a block away from what took place. So, I have written a poem instead.)
I swim through
the slimy waters of patriarchal violence
Difficult to express in words
the anxieties, the fear, the sadness
I feel as I take another stroke
towards
the parshah Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:6),
a divinely wrought plague of locusts
devouring all in their path.
Breathe,
stroke.
Darkness lasting three long days
blood smeared on doorposts and lintels
the deaths of first-borns, humans and animals alike,
the proclamation of a New Year and its festivities
to remind us of such nonsensical violence.
Breathe.
There is blood in the water.
Stroke.
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