JUSTICE - WALL TO WALL?

I could not measure how
This wall belies its history.
I have no yardstick to explain
Its tragic thrall, no
Plumbline to define its angled
Reach to heaven, or to hell.

For in these stones, these
Massive slabs of rock by
Herod hewn, there is a welcome
And a cruel rebuff, a symbol
Of a wounded people crying “home”,
Where access is again denied.

Here at this Wailing Wall
Devotion of the faithful is assured
In longing for a temple not a tent:
But on the wind the swallows
Glide, and catch another wailing,
A distant lamentation of another people -

And another wall.




At Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall,
On Pilgrimage among the Palestinian hills.