This year, Tu b’Shvat, the New Year for Trees, falls only a few days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here is a poem that encompasses both.
ROOTS OF HOPE
We are planted on the edge of hope,
On hills falling backwards into the mist.
Topsoil washed away into the lowlands of past glory.
Windblown and fearless,
We grow.
We sink roots deep into the past,
Nourished by dead dreams and unfinished lives.
Defeated by gale and hail, despair mulches our feet,
Feeding our longing,
We stand.
We grasp at a sky always out of reach,
Branches stripped bare by winds from the abyss,
Scarred by frost, we stand naked before a cold and silent God.
Without understanding,
We endure.
We blink in the slow sunshine of spring,
Listen to a voice from beneath the choked silence.
As if these twisted limbs held a memory of a vanished crown
To weave light into hope…
We blossom.
