Once individuals have the motivation to do something different, the whole world can begin to change.
Esther Cameron
a’ anit Ester, id est
The Fast of Esther
By Esther Cameron
Can anyone still hear my people’s cry,
Even they themselves? Can anybody stand
In the blown-apart heart of the Holy Land,
Can anybody see with shattered eye
All that is done? Can anyone think why,
Marshal a shredded brain to understand?
Can anybody grasp a severed hand,
Can a cut-out tongue still stammer of Sinai?
O GOD, restore the image of Your Law,
Restore the sacredness of human form,
If not for Israel’s, for your sweet earth’s sake.
Send us a sign, send forth a ray to draw
Love’s faithful in against the hateful storm,
To uphold the norm, and face down Amalek!”
Chopsticks
by Esther Cameron
On the old upright piano in the gym
short fingers jangle out the clanking Hymn
to Anarchy the children always know.
Where do they learn it? Players come and go,
but it survives, jumping form span to span
of their quick generations. Peter Pan
must have composed the thing. Though surely he
would have put into it more revelry,
more reverie or more rhodomontade –
something, anyway, other than this odd –
angled insouciance. Here you hear no dream
of islands, crocs, clocks, pirates. Aimless meme,
It asks only to cause a small annoyance
before relapsing into dumb compliance.
Nothing will change, tink tink. Anyone care?
Clank clank. Indifference, older than despair.
Fourteen Lines 