From the soil beneath the Most Holy Place,

mixed with desert dirt,

rises the protecting Golem of Israel.

His war cry,

“Israel is the Golem of the Jews!

And I am the Golem of Israel!”

He waits in the cellars of Jerusalem,

and beneath the pavement in Brooklyn,

sleeps in the foundation stone of a Savannah synagogue,

buried among the roots of palm trees

planted beside curving driveways of desert homes in Pheniox.

He waits to do battle to protect

the old Jew on a Florida golf-course,

the Star of David hanging from a gold chain,

resting on silver chest hair.

He waits to defend the Hascidic rabbi

squinting to parce an ancient talmudic text.

With his stone eyes he sees

ever brewing pogrums threatening

and is ready, the Jewish Superman,

to do battle for his people.

Why wouldn’t he?

Through millennia of habit,

he’s waited for the call,

“Hear O’ Israel!

The Lord our God is One!”

To wait, ready, is his bliss and Blessing.

He owns the joy as his own.

“Behold the Protector of the Chosen!

The extension of God’s arm!

The sword in Gods hand!”

Surprising, though….

He has yet to notice the new uniform he wears…

In his new enthusiasm,

He fails to see the new colors,

the browns and grays and blacks replacing

the desert sky blue of old on a white field.

A new bully arises in the old neighborhoods..

The old verses become screeches.

He does not hear the tread of wooden jackboot heels

crunching the ancient cobble stones,

laid, of old, by Roman legions.

Nor does he hear the barked orders

of new Caesars.