Every day

The news is constant
and most of it is bad.
These are the waters
we swim in, choked
with mud and debris,
this is the rubble
weighing us down.
People are starving
and we argue about
who's more at fault.
Measles is roaring
back to life. Every
day is Tisha b'Av now.
Which means every day
a seed of hope
is planted.
Every day, a runway.
Every day we get up
from the floor,
brush off mourning's
ashes and begin again
like our ancestors
in the wilderness
who every year
would dig their graves
expecting to die
and wake to discover
another chance.

 

 A seed of hope / is planted. Tradition holds that moshiach / the messiah will be born on Tisha b'Av -- the seeds of redemption growing in the soil of our darkest day.

Every day, a runway. Tisha b'Av begins the seven-week runway toward the Days of Awe and the Jewish new year. 

Like our ancestors.  See Rashi on Taanit 30b:12:1.

This poem was inspired by a conversation after the first session of Seven Habits of Highly Evolved People, the pre-high-holiday class I'm co-teaching with R. David Markus this year.