Rising from Ramah,
loud lament,
Rachel, inconsolable,
crying for her children—
              their bodies
                      beaten, brutalized, burned,
                      scattered across landscape;
             their lives
                      carried away, taken captive,
                      huddled in darkness, held under death’s shadow;
             their futures
                      uprooted, stripped of leaf and flower,
                      left to dust and wind—
as they sink into the ground,
which opens its mouth
to receive their blood and cry out to God.

Wandering in wilderness,
one voice,
Hagar, helpless, hopeless,
weeping for her children—
             their bodies
                      bombed, blasted, broken,
                      buried beneath rubble;
             their lives
                      abandoned, alienated,
                      sheltered in tents, forced from refuge to refuge;
             their dreams
                      smashed, splintered into kindling,
                      turned to smoke and ash—
as they sink into the ground,
which opens its mouth
to receive their blood and cry out to God.

Rachel refuses consolation in Hagar’s desolation.
Hagar finds no peace in Rachel’s pain.

Mothers, without comfort,
mourning for their children,
because they are no more.