Ghazal of the Gentile

Our city was sleeping the night that you came to Israel.
Your eyes were alight as you staked your claim to Israel.

Your love is a light that will not be hid in Bethlehem,
You purified silver and put your flame to Israel.

Torrential rain gathers fragrance, spreads it all the earth.
The clouds of the Palestine drift, all the same, to Israel.

Our city has fifty, no, forty, no, ten guiltless men -
Sheltering strangers our sordid shame. To Israel?

All tongues and all tribes, eternal domain of flowers wild
Commanded to bloom. Is this all a game to Israel?

This peace that we speak, inviting the Arab and Jew alike -
The sin – of our city? – is sending out blame to Israel.

Our branches are withered, our shoots are grafted holiness:
You found our blind and walked our lame to Israel.

A baby is born, a star in the sky is shining bright.
No frankincense – myrrh? No gold – our aim – to Israel.

Shalom aleichem, aleichem shalom, our ceaseless cry -
The sending of witnesses – bringing your fame to Israel.

Awakening us to ancestral lands, our dream enfleshed,
I hear the wind whisper my baptismal name; to Israel!