The Old Books

'there on the willows we hung our harps ...' Psalm 137

Who would not love a willow

weighed with weeping

and who would not lament

alongside the vanquished

and exiled, their children

massacred, their city destroyed?

But who would not flinch

at the call for revenge

an eye, a tooth,

justice dismembered?

Look to the holy word

for wisdom and find

willows blinded,

hung with harps and rage:

Praiseworthy is he who will take

and dash your infants against the rock.

The old stories

are the truest

and the old books

will never grow old.

Jacqueline Saphra