Yom kippur of non-believers

Next door my neighbor is preparing lunch

I hear each dish as it is placed on the table,

Each item removed from the refrigerator,

Each chair moved towards the food.

There are no other sounds except the crows

cawing their usual complaints,

So each human sin is clear, each washing machine,

Each peak at foreign news programs.

Where would we be without the believers,

Those who scurry back and forth from prayer,

Paler and paler as the day goes on,

Those for whom we try to keep a semblance

Of the silence of faith?

Last night in the streets

The children were running wild on their bicycles

As if there was no other day to show their skills

To their parents, their friends. 

But it was more subdued than usual

With less bravado than the years before

As if the last war had finally broken

All pretense of freedom from identity.

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