I run from your city streets
where the Laws are too bright and hot,
the Shadows too hard, sure, possessed.
I run into the cool shade of your forest,
taking refuge like the birds.
(There are no knives in the forest.
Blood is shed here only as it must be shed.)
Not for bathing, drinking, celebrating.
The boundaries of wooded shade are deeply threatened,
Jerusalem,
as blood replaces even the rain,
as Laws turn into blood.
Originally published in the Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies, 2017, Vol.12, Theme: Earth/Psyche (The poem refers to the genuine threat of losing a forest in Jerusalem city proper)
© 2019, Judy Capurso
JUDITH CAPURSO writes and works in the Catskill Mountains.
In and out through waitress, musician, wife, parent, librarian, poetry teacher, caregiver, script reader, archivist, she continues to “stumble along between the immensities”.
Really beautiful and harrowing poem.
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