REQUIEM FOR THE CANADA WELL

by Tricia Knoll

in memory of Rachel Corrie

Lying semi-conscious… is nine-year-old Yunis Jumaa, who has cerebral palsy… His mother Ghanima says eight months of war have dramatically worsened his health. "When he developed this malnutrition and dehydration, he became as you see him now," she says. "There is no bottled water. The children walk a long distance—when they get water it reaches us contaminated," she adds. —BBC, June 21, 2024

On Friday, I discovered a video posted on Instagram by an Israeli soldier from the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, showing the calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah…The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists. —Younis Tirawi, Portside, July 29, 2024

To know the land, dig for water.
An angel found Hagar at the well.
Stories told of Rebekah and the women
coming together where the pool stills,
the well fills in slow rising. To find
stillness and life. Safe haven. Give me
something cool to drink. I will love you.
Be my oasis. Honor the flow of vows. 
This is the spirit of life. 
 
And now, quiet municipal services:
no sirens. No flashing lights. Backhoes
attending to unanticipated main breaks,
diggers repairing the aftermath 
of earthquakes. Repair. Filter. Deliver. 
 
Villains poison the well.
Cruelty blows it up—
we are told from old times
women gather
to carry water home
again and again
going to the well. 

Tricia Knoll worked for a municipal water utility for fifteen years, including emergency response to New Orleans following Katrina to help restore drinking water service. In 2024, two new poetry books were published: Wild Apples (poems of downsizing and moving 3,000 miles to Vermont) and The Unknown Daughter (27 poems of voiced personas responding to a Tomb of the Unknown Daughter).

SIMCHAT TORAH WAR

by Elya Braden

“Bereshit” print from Nireh Or

The beginning is the promise of the end.

—Henry Ward Beecher

 

Every Fall we rock the house,

dance & sing & lift the scroll.

Roll back to B’reishit. In the beginning—

chaos cleaved into light & dark

a man a woman a garden a fall.

 

Roll back l’dor v’dor—generation

to generation. 

Roll back Deuteronomy’s gifts—

Ten Commandments, Moses peering

into the Promised Land.

Roll back Numbers’ sufferings—

rod, stone, bland manna,

a wilderness of complaint. 

Roll back Leviticus’ hundreds of tiny edicts

the cost of forgiveness—

denial & purification.

Roll back Exodus’ hungry waters,

locusts, frogs, endless night,

          lambs’ blood to guardian our sons.

Roll back to Genesis—father/mother/handmaid,

multiply two sons & divide 

by one patch of desert.

 

So, who’s to blame for blood feud? 

Isaac & Ishmael? Or their mothers—

Sarah & Hagar? Sarah’s laughter 

withering on her lips as her handmaid 

suckles Abraham’s eldest— 

a legacy of lack & opportunity.

Or blame God—God’s two-faced 

promise: I will make of your son 

a great nation. 

 

Well, one thing we know about land 

is God ain’t making any more.

Yet we multiply like frogs, spill

from lakes & puddles & faucets & mouths, 

our hunger rises like the papery wings 

of a thousand moths splitting their cocoons, 

stripping the trees of green.

 

So why not drone a war on this day 

we dance & sing, raise Torah scrolls 

above our heads to celebrate return? 

B’reishit bara Elohim,

“In the beginning, God created…”

 

Air raid sirens the only psalms now sung 

in this land of too many Gods.

Editor’s Note: Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, began for Hebrew Year 5784 on Saturday, 7 October 2023 and ended on Sunday, 8 October 2023.

Elya Braden is a writer and mixed-media artist living in Ventura County, CA, and is an editor for Gyroscope Review. She is the author of the chapbooks, Open The Fist (2020) and The Sight of Invisible Longing (2023). Her work has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Prometheus Dreaming, Rattle Poets Respond, Sequestrum, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, The Louisville Review, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets.