THE BETRAYAL OF TIKKUN OLAM

by Beth Heller

art by Nina Bonos

To repair the world, they said,

was our duty and our privilege
and the reason for our continued existence
 
Israel was supposed to be
the place where this work was embodied
and my body was put to use in its garden
 
I carried water in buckets
My 15 year old arms reaching toward trees
planted in the name of hope

We looked across the border
into barren desert and felt pride
And this was the mistake

This pride in green fields on one side
and desert on the other
We thought it meant they didn’t care

or couldn’t do the hard work of growing
We thought we had the right
and the power

And that THEY did not
And that THEY only wanted bombs 
and rage
 
This pride is the killer
the border, the dividing line 
between right and wrong

When all we had to do was step over 
a nonexistent line in the sand
drawn by meddlers and offer a hand
 
Now it is too late
The healing has flipped to genocide 
in no other name than power
The thing that was planted
was hate
on both sides of the fence
 
Tikkun Olam is for all of us
A responsibility and
a privilege

And the path is a walk
through a rain of blood
nurturing nothing

Same as it ever was
in this desert where humanity
has wandered far too long
 
Blame us
Blame them
Blame everyone

Or not, but walk
Walk that path 
towards oasis

The one fountain
contained in our bodies
everywhere

The same blood pumps through all of us
The same blood stains the ground
on either side of the fence

The same blood
calls out for 
peace

Beth Heller’s poetry has appeared in a variety of chapbooks and anthologies, including those of the Austin International Poetry Festival, the Houston Poetry Fest, Wild Word: Poets of the Gunnison Valley, and Fools Court Press, Houston, as well as newspapers and journals such as the Mountain Gazette, Fungi Magazine, and most recently and after a decades-long absence from public poeming, Medicine for Minds & Hearts: a MycoAnthology of poems inspired by a love of mushrooms, Fungi Press.  She moves around but is currently nested in Western North Carolina

CONVERSELY…

by Regina YC Garcia

Bracha Lavee Art Studio

All land is holy/land was holy 
until it is not/until it was not

Land that has been 
planted/has been penned
by hearts beating contrite/or 
hearts lying unrepentant 
with feet that have walked/ or 
feet that have occupied 
and minds with thoughts of peace/ or 
minds with thoughts of plot

The land-now restructured 
The laws-now revised
The people-once free/the people-now contained
live inflamed/ live in flames

We wonder of war
We wail of death
All of it waged by hands
some clean/ some unclean

The terrain, at least large enough,
seems to be not enough and
struggles to be/desires to be reframed/ to be reclaimed
     by new ghosts/by ghosts of old.


Regina YC Garcia is a DAR American Heritage Literary Award Winner and a Pushcart Nominated Poet, Language Artist, and English Professor from Greenville, NC. She has been published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Amistad, Black Joy Unbond, and numerous others. She has also contributed to a variety of podcasts, documentaries, and musical and literary arrangements including the Sacred 9 Project (Tulane University) and an Emmy award winning episode of the PBS art show Muse. Her debut chapbook The Firetalker's Daughter was released in March 2023 by Finishing Line Press.