September 11th

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
   wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
   she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:18

Rachel is there
in every street where tears
pool in cratered houses,
where the broken bodies
of children are carried in the arms
of parents who refuse to be comforted,
where voices, the dust of grief
turning them hoarse, drift across
the rubble of former communities.
and God?
God who once tiptoed into a barn
and slept in a manger of straw,
who knew firsthand
the fear, the flight, the exile
simply because of where
he was born, sits with Rachel
and all the mothers of Gaza,
sobbing, keening, weeping,
wailing until justice is done.

(c) 2025 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo: @Thom-Shuman