Walking is a poem: the footfalls an endless series of rhythmic iambs.
In the spirit of the walk’s physical verse, we share a poem written by the Massachusetts-based poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat. Follow Rachel’s poetry and other writing on her blog, the Velveteen Rabbi.
Rachel explains:
MAP AND TERRITORY
Draw the lines firm: give no doubt
where the boundaries between us
and them. Your choice of alphabet
will locate you on one side
or the other. Think of the man
walking for seven years from where
the human story began. “I forget
the names of towns without rivers.”
He wakes in the morning
to the footprints of desert beetles.
As we told the story of the Exodus
he took ship across the Red Sea
on a Syrian vessel full of mourners.
Hardboiled eggs rolled on their plates.
Will he climb the Harei Yehuda
or the Jibal al-Khalil?
Overhead, cranes following his route
chivvy him with rattling calls.
From their vantage his footsteps blur
into the sinuous tracks of a snake.
His path, the great rift
no negotiations can heal.