TALK
(Hali Hammer)

I can talk to you about the changes in the weather
I can talk to you about the changes in our lives
I can talk to you about our government’s injustice
I can talk to you about the struggle to survive
     Why can’t I talk to you about what’s happening in Israel?
     I can’t talk to you about the bombings on the news
     I can’t talk about bulldozers knocking down the houses
     I can’t talk to you about the Arabs and the Jews
Your parents didn’t talk of Pogrom or Holocaust
Ah, but you talked to me of what they had been through
And I still hear the fear implicit in their voices
When they’d mention goyim or the sacrifice of Jews
     My Bubby didn’t talk about what happened to her sister
     But you told me why she couldn’t watch TV
     When they showed concentration camps and footage of the bodies
     How it was that sister whom she feared that she would see
Why can’t I talk to you about what’s happening in Israel?…
     I tried to talk to you about Palestine and Israel
     You shut down on me, said that even to this day
     The Arabs hate the Jews, and the Jews have hated Arabs
     Many thousand years, and it would always be that way
I want to talk and say there must be chinks within the armor
There must be a way for sowing love instead of hate
Out of the realm of power into a place of reason
Where both sides could slow down, and just communicate
     I want them all to talk of how to ease the lives of children
     Stop the posturing, and hold each other’s hands
     To work at hope and reason, not a terror of each other
     Dedicate their lives to have a truly Promised Land
I can talk to you about the changes in the weather…
     We have got to start to listen to each other
     Find a compromise at which neither side will balk
     To sit at the same table, and deal with this together
     And get to a point where we can really talk
     Yes, get to a point where we can really talk…