Return to Zion
By Shira Schoenberg
I am the one who carried you home, he said
As the sun searched for a spot to gleam
Off his grimy battle boots.
He stood upright
Though his shoulders were laden
With the weight of 2000 years.
They waited for him
In joyous apprehension,
Farmers yearning
To till swamp to field
The dead and the half dead
Scars crisscrossing their shoulders
Waiting for him to salve their wounds.
The eagle flew on my back
I am the one who carried you home
Where do we go from here, they asked.
As he began to walk away,
His olive shirt stained
With sacred dirt, holy blood,
Rifle swinging against his muscled side
Throwing shadows against the sun-baked sand.
How do we build homes of brick
From white unyielding stone?
His silence filled the desert
like a coyote in the night
You must go from here
I am the one who carried you home
A halo from the setting sun rested on his brow.
He did not know how to pray or mourn
Had never been to school or loved a woman.
But a displaced nation turned its eyes to him.
Breathed a prayer for peace
As desert silence encased his gun.
The eagle flew on his back
He is the one who carried them home
But as he began to trudge away,
Desert sounds grew loud.
A rattlesnake drew in from the East
A bear came from the South
Stinging bees buzzed from the North
And to the West the sea.
They looked to his retreating back
Their savior and prayers
But as the thin air shimmered
He seemed to disappear.
A voice from above was heard:
You must go from here
I fulfilled the Promise
The eagle flew on my back
I am the one who carried you home.
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