Even Reading Goes Slower On A 'Fast Day' Poem by Shalom Freedman

Even Reading goes slower on a 'Fast Day'
How can there be a Poem
From a mind so languid?

In the midsummer heat of Eretz Yisrael
I think again-
Of the years of exile
So many lives I know so little about –

We have returned
We are here
This is the great thing –

I will soon walk up the hill to Mincha
Do we need the Sorrow still,
When there is the Gratitude of being here again?

A Poem perhaps for this day also
And still eight hours until the fast ends.