How can we be strangers
When this moment
I breathe in and out
The same thousands of nitrogen molecules
That were in the deep breath
Of your great great grandmother
Whom you never met,
Swept up into the winds of the planet
To join the international stock
Of terrestrial atmosphere,
To join the natural and necessary breaths
Of every creature that ever sighed,
In an eternal dance,
Ballerinas of the air,
Clothed in star jasmine and hyacinth,
Lavender and exhaust,
Spiced with citrus and spirits,
Smoke stacks, sawdust,
Hairspray, soap bubbles and cities burning.
The perfume of Christmas ham
Waltzing and whirling
With kosher strudel
High above and apart
From our imagined distinctions,
Incense and offerings
Swaying with the sound waves
Of distant sobbing
And recent laugher,
The sacred warbling from citadels
And minarets,
Magical mantras,
Wind chimes
And soothing bells,
Pierced through with shrieks
Of tortured sufferers
Somewhere else.
The breath of my enemy too,
And the faint current of a butterfly wing.
Flurry of snowflakes, blast of heat
From a laundry vent.
How can we be strangers
When a year from now
You will breathe in and out
The same thousands of nitrogen molecules
That were in my deep breath
This moment?
We are not strangers at all,
We are most intimate,
For what is in you was once in me
And will be again,
And I in you,
You are each under my skin
And I under yours.
The stuff of the distant past
And the breath of great creatures
We’ve never ever known
Blend seamlessly with
Future souls.
Air is the ultimate intimacy,
All of us drinking from the same
Bottomless cup,
Ruach Elohim,
Eternal wind,
Blessed be the breath
That makes us one.
Blessed be the transcendent air
That bridges time and space
And you and me
And rock, bird, icicle, tree,
We break bread together this moment
In repentance for our corruption of the Sacred Invisible,
In hope for its repair,
In resolve, pledge and commitment
To our covenant with earth and sky,
We who breathe,
We whose souls are Eternity’s breath,
We break bread not as strangers,
But as partners,
Blessed be the bread we break this day,
Blessed be the air we breathe this day,
The breath we pass from one to the other
Back and forth
Out of me and into you
And out of you and into me
And my ancestors
And your descendents,
This air, this prayer,
For time immortal.
Perhaps
We shouldn’t call them environmentalists
But prophets,
Those who foresee the effect
Of turning up the ocean a few small degrees,
Who like Jonah
Find Godliness
In the belly of great fish
At the bottom of the sea.
Who cares what goes on in the belly of a big fish
At the bottom of the sea?
Well, the environmentalist
Who is curled inside that belly
Measuring for mercury
Counting rubber tires.
Perhaps we shouldn’t call them environmentalists,
It really is a mouthful…but prophets,
Those who speak exactly what everyone does not want to hear,
Who like Jeremiah
Are pelted with insults and cruel laughter
When he warned of the Babylonian attack.
Who cares what he is preaching on his limestone slab
In the middle of the temple court?
Until the walls are breached,
Until the fragile sanctuary of forest and fern
Is shredded by giant machines.
Perhaps we shouldn’t call them environmentalists,
But modern day prophets…
it was Noah who understood that the flood was approaching,
It was Jacob who knew all about speckled sheep,
It was Joseph who knew about lean years and fat,
it was Moses who knew when the Nile would redden,
when to expect hail,
when the hamsin would turn the sky thick and dark,
It was Moses who knew how to draw water from a rock,
it was Joshua who knew when the sun would stand still,
it was Elijah who knew about rains and drought,
it was David who knew all the shepherd’s songs,
it was Ezekiel who knew about sapphire skies,
it was Isaiah who knew about lions and lambs,
and how did they know,
was it tea leaves, or Ouija, or night-visions or God?
Perhaps we shouldn’t call the prophets of old prophets,
But environmentalists,
For they knew because they listened and responded to the land…
Perhaps
We shouldn’t call them environmentalists
Because though they are devoted to the earth,
Something of them is heaven-sent.
Baruch Atah Adonai,
Blessed are You oh God,
For environmentalism,
That prophetic voice
Which protects tomorrow
By caring today.
We are not connected to it at all any more
Except through nature preserves and pets.
We have no connection to the sensuous surroundings,
and shivering entities.
We don’t even see it.
The environment is the broken window
We look but we only see ourselves,
Locked in our mirrored cities,
We are as sick as we make the world around us,
No less.
We are violent by nature
Because we are violent with nature
We are violent with nature
And it is making us sick.
When Cain murdered Abel,
His blood cried out to God from the ground,
And God cursed Cain from the ground.
What did Cain do?
He built a city,
He could no longer work the land,
It would not yield to him,
So he built a city,
And legend says that because
Abel’s blood cursed the ground,
The trees which once each produced
all kinds of fruit,
now each only bears one kind.
It is an amazing legend,
For it faults man’s violence
For diminishing nature’s bounty.
The first city was built
By a man with the blood
of his brother on his hands
that bloody fingerprint
in every concrete city.
The breathing ground is corrupted,
The earth is a broken window,
And this whole city of graffiti and violence
Is built upon it.
The motto of ecologists is
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
And to these three,
As Jews, we add on a fourth,
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Remember.
Remember that we are the stewards of this earth.