First, Max,

in the turmoil of a roiling Russian Revolution

(The power of an unstoppable hope

smashing into the bulk of an immovable Czar)

offered his angry, minuscule contribution:

an errant pistol shot,

missing the local commissar by a whisker.

Then he flees cross a continent and ocean,

a tattered Torah in one hand,

a bomb in the other,

arriving, at last, his heart pounding,

in what he hopes will be

his American sanctuary.

But comes the opposition in the shape of his son

who carries in his mind

his own antithetical ideal,

a sickle in one hand,

a hammer in the other.

While I, Max’s son’s son

gestates in the wings,

a shrinking mustard seed in my mind

a Crucifix in one hand,

a question mark in the other.

We are a family tree of true believers,

each acolyte believing his own truth

to be the better of the rest.

Both Max and Dad are dead now

and I have no sons I know of…

So, unless a golden soap box

waits on some back-street corner of Heaven,

I guess we have found peace

and can breathe easy.