Eicha: Tisha B’Av in Plague Time
It is summer still blue sky
trees heavy with foliage
loud birds in the shrubbery
hiding from hawks
neglected towers collapsing
and the plagues of hatred
and addiction and despair
and the attack of the invisible
against a temple here or there
white stone gone dead
What am I to make of all this beauty
and all this sorrow and fear
please just act like normal
like everything will be okay
please trust the system
say the system managers
and then a woman nameless
stands up shouting in pain
watch out for the angels
they despise you
there they go flying over you
heading for the coast
coughing garbage
into the atmosphere
above you
Poet and critic Alicia Ostriker has published 17 volumes of poetry. Her latest collection, The Volcano and After: Selected and New Poems, 2002-2019, came out in 2020. She has been called “America’s most fiercely honest poet,” and was one of the first poets in America to publish poems on motherhood.