“Clouds”

As this afternoon the cotton candy clouds share space with azure sky, I surmise that God above does not abide the lie that Hamas’ savage strike justifies the Israeli government’s genocide.

Widows, orphans, strangers bear the brunt of extreme and arbitrary force. Displaced tented families eke out day by day survival, searching bomb-razed hospitals and schools for children’s charred remains.

In Gaza when the missiles come, There are no clouds and yet we cannot see the sky, a mother’s plaintive voice confides. If you lose me, you will grow to live your life, her last child is advised.

I can’t countenance the cruelty as a “Jew by Choice” of thirty years with The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy as life’s beacon light.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s conduct causes our ancestral land to clone horrors we deplore.

Denying food, inducing famine, is alone a sin – but Israel’s lies when soldiers killed aid workers whom bulldozers buried with their van was already more than I could bear.

Who is left to heal the crawling wounded in the rubble of the raid that drops the bomb?

There are no clouds and yet we cannot see the sky, the widow said, but no one seems to care.

It’s controversial say the Jewish leaders whose platitudes preserve what I perceive as unity’s façade.

It shames me to feel free in elder years to relish sunshine’s sky, lacking platforms of the prominent who should sound the Shofar’s Conscience Call.

May heartfelt thoughts awaken all to the immorality of what silence has allowed.

May compassion bond all caught in crossfires to force an end to war,

As conduits of blessings may they share the sight of sky.