No Thanks.

Many of us have much to be thankful for, and we express it to those we love, and to others, every day. Too many of our fellow humans do not, and it's urgent to acknowledge that truth.

(Mahmoud Ajjour, a Gazan boy, who went back to rescue his family after Israeli shells began falling on their home, and lost his arms in his heroic attempt. He is 9 years old, the age of my youngest granddaughter. He told the New York Times: “My biggest wish now is to get prosthetics.” Photo by Samar Abu Elouf, appearing in the November 25, 2024, New York Times.)

Please do not avert your eyes.

Try hearing the cries of 9 year olds,

Like Mahmoud,

Who is not blessed with food, like you

And if he were, his mother would have to feed him.

It’s why I’m not grateful for hateful acts of war

And inhumanity, such grotesque profanities,

Demonizing differences, destroying children,

Like 14,000 dead in Gaza, many under 5 years old,

Ten times the number of Israelis killed or raped or kept.

As Jews, we used to think we were better than that,

But we are not, and we continue to delude ourselves

That we were Chosen to Repair the World,

While we turn tens of thousands of our babies,

The world’s children, into amputees or corpses.

No, I cannot give “Thanks” to a world led by

Tyrants or cranks, who deny the existence of laws,

Of war, or peace, or time,

And defy the courts of justice

Which find them guilty of such crimes.

No, I’m not grateful for the hateful,

Who spew their bile,

Over the face of a child,

And delight in the sickly vapor of their own

Vile cruelty, which, after a while,

Becomes the entire point of their actions.

As Americans we used to think we were better than that,

But we are not, yet we continue to delude ourselves

That we are A Promised Land.

Instead we are nothing but a trench between two Oceans,

Filled with the stench of broken promises,

Deeply scarred by the darkening hues of hate.

I will not give “Thanks” or “Gratitude”

For a world gone mad with the attitude,

That only a select few have a right

To health or wealth or life or love,

And believe that any God, on earth or above,

Would bless such evil,

Or leave the task of deciding who shall live

Or who shall die, to shallow beings who do not care,

And cannot comprehend what any of it means.