Not of Blood, But of Spirit

I wonder where you are tonight. If you've made it to the border yet, with the sound of the bombs in your shadows and your baby on your hip. If your footsteps pound out the words "almost there" and if you ever stop to look back one more time at your native home. If you find a fire to warm your soul and some food for your son. He's thin now and his eyes are listless. He is just as likely to die here as a little child as he is to grow into a man, but yet you look at him with the same hope and the same love as I look at my own. And it is with hope and love that you travel on by foot, miles and miles, through the darkness.

I wonder where you are tonight. If you're standing out there on the front line, somewhere in a foreign land, with your hand on your weapon and your heart a thousand miles away. I wonder if you're thinking of high school and your mother and all the people you used to know. If you're remembering for an instant how it felt to ride down a small town street in a yellow convertible, with the top down, and your best friend laughing behind the wheel. On your way to the football game. They call you a hero back at home now, you know, say you're fighting for the freedom of the entire world. Yet the child has not yet left your eyes, and the child's dreams have not yet left your mind.

I wonder where you are tonight. If you're on that London subway heading to an empty apartment on the other side of the city. Heading to the memories of the man that shared your bed just one week ago. He's off fighting now, off to help the Americans. The Americans, he said with pride, just before reminding you that this battle too is for you and he and the children you will someday have together. Someday when he returns again, with that lopsided grin like a little boy in a grown man's uniform. And you practice the words in your mind that you will say on that day; words of honor and respect and how you never doubted for a moment that he'd be back once he'd done this necessary thing for future's sake.

I wonder where you are tonight. If you're going away from the songs and the dancing at the kibbutz to board a bus that will take you within walking distance of the wall where your people go to wail. And to pray. If you're simply seeking the solace of the cool autumn evening, time alone for memories of your long-gone husband who sought this place himself, in moments like these. Time alone with your God. You've seen days such as this nearly all of the days of your life. It is war that erased the father of your children just like the husbands of your sisters and your friends. It is war that erased the landscape that you knew as a little girl. It is war that causes you to rely now on no man and no land but on an ancient promise given to you before you were even born.

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