God of Mercy

By Kadya Molodovsky

Merciful God,
Choose another people
Elect another.
We are tired of death and dying,
We have no more prayers,
Choose another people
Elect another.
We have no more blood
To be a sacrifice.
Our house has become a desert.
The earth is insufficient for our graves.
No more laments for us,
No more dirges
In the old, holy books.

Merciful God,
Sanctify another country,
Another mountain.
We have strewn all the fields and every stone
With ash, with holy ash.
With the aged,
With the youthful,
And with babies, we have paid
for every letter of your Ten Commandments.

Merciful God,
Raise your fiery brow,
And see the peoples of the world -
Give them the prophecies and the Day of Awe.
Your word is babbled in every language -
Teach them the deeds,
The ways of temptation.

Merciful God,
Give us simple garments
Of shepherds with their sheep,
Blacksmiths at their hammers,
Laundry washers, skin-flayers,
And even the more base.
And do us one more favor:
Merciful God,
Deprive us of the Divine Presence of genius.