this isn’t poetry
this is just
bearing witness
and writing it down
today I watched a man in Gaza
attend a wedding in the rubble
today I watched
a child shake with hunger
and wished I believed in God
today I watched
and it did not help anyone
I stayed watching
gritting my teeth
writing no poetry
whispering no prayers
bearing witness
like Atlas bears the earth
it is not natural
for us to scroll
from one emotion
to the next; feel them
ricochet
bloom and spin and flick them away
but what about this world is natural?
what is left untainted?
what is there left
other than to live
and do our jobs
and hug our friends
and go to protests
and fade into the crowd
our voices forming
an ugly, broken song
I think I’ve forgotten
how to make words sound beautiful
I want to write about crying
in metaphors of larger bodies of water
streams; rivers; the ripples
of a pebble hitting a lake
I am the smallest body of water
and I have too little tears
no one has ever taught me how to
write
about anyone else’s pain
so in the presence of the worst pains
I write about bearing witness
and feeling helpless
I try to find words that end in -ing
to convince myself I am doing anything
almost none of them are true
I am barely even bearing
I have the smallest job
the smallest body of water
and I am still failing it
trailing it behind me
in drips and splashes
what do you do
when you can’t bear it?
where do you go
when you are already
in the most safe place?
On Rosh Hashanah
the world begins anew
and nothing changes
A too-wise 40 year old
looks my hopelessness in the eye
and tells it that, now
our fingernails scratch futilely
but a crack is coming
that someday soon
there will be a fissure
to grab onto
to tear open
and it is our job now
to gather up ourselves
and our communities
to make ourselves ready
On Yom Kippur
I pour my atonements
into this promise of a crack
and make myself ready
—Zoe Kanter