The Pyle Inside

Page 13, And There Was Evening 

And There Was Morning.

A tale by

Harriet Cohen Helfand and

Ellen Kahan Zager.

A book sent

From PJ Library.

From my childhood.

Not very interesting to me

Then.

I liked

The story books.

Ones that usually,

Didn’t have much to do

With the Torah.

Usually just people

Going through life.

And they were Jewish.

Page 13, And There Was Evening 

And There Was Morning.

“For taking good care of this wonderful plan,

God spoke the words that made woman and man

To watch over all beings who live in the sky,

The sea and the land, and all you can spy.”

Then.

I never knew

What a passion I would have

To fight for the

Environment.

To have love

For the nature.

To be ashamed

For what we humans

Have done.

picture:

The haze filled skies,

The albatross on

Midway Island.

Their death

From ingesting plastic.

Or the infinite rows

Of animals.

Their names in black

On the IUCN red list

Extinct.

I understand that it’s

Just a tale.

Just one of likely hundreds,

People seeking an answer to their question:

Why are we here?

How did we get here?

What is our purpose?

And yet I wonder…

Maybe I’m not supposed to

Maybe I’m supposed to just accept it

Perhaps I should listen to the voices

Who discourage

“Don’t question it,

There is nothing you can do,

It’s just the way things are”

But still I wonder…

How much farther from the truth,

How much more distant from reality,

Could that passage,

That line from And There Was Evening 

And There Was Morning,

How much farther could it be?