Men passing a formidable medicine stick

"If we sleep they bite"

Everyone has to sleep, right?

Gazans especially.

But they can't sleep

In the Hell Israel has created for them!

Sleep is what allows us

To take a breather from whatever we are dealing with.

Sleep gives us dreams

That help us process our lives

From inside out.

Even a few hours of sleep

Keep us from tumbling into the abyss of

Losing ourselves completely

To our fears, our grief, our hunger, our

Psychic and emotional exhaustion.

But sleep doesn't come.

The camps are infested with rats,

Weasels, insects and parasites.

This should disturb our sleep:

That more than 2,000,000 people

Are living in bombed-out homes and

Makeshift tents on open grounds,

In roadside shelters or on top

Of the ruins of buildings.

And what is the finger of a child to a rat?

We had our men's group last night.

The talking stick that we passed around

Was carved by a Kenyan medicine man.

To one man it felt like a weapon

In his hands.

He said, "I could kill someone with this."

To another man it felt heavy, like iron.

The stick was full of medicine power

For men who are waking up.

Good men. Fathers, teachers, poets, artists,

Homesteaders, carpenters,

The kind of men you could trust with your kids.

The kind of men who can pass a medicine stick

That could kill but instead they use it

To empower what is alive in them.

What is alive

And what yearns to be more alive.

I am reminded of the refrain in the song "Samson and Delilah"

Originally recorded by Reverend Gary Davis,

Popularized by Peter Paul and Mary.

If I had my way

If I had may way

If I had my way

I would tear this whole building down.

(This whole rotten building.)

Wise men know this is a metaphor.

Poets depend on metaphors

To circumambulate feelings

That might be two raw or hot to touch.

But let us not underestimate the illuminating power of a candle.