Poem by David Leshchiner
I blew the rocks that murdered your family
These rocks were once giant boulders
The men of past stared at them in wonder as they built towns and villages
The boulders shrunk
Canaanites cut them to make axes
They were no match against Egyptian bronze
I made their arrows fly farther
Men melding into Earth
Escaping my touch
People from the Sea, whose sails I blew, came and went
New clay looked upon the boulders
Men of knotted cloth looked up at me and thanked me for these mighty creatures
I only dissipated and reformed
Red splashed these monuments
Words whispered through me as the boulders stood in silence
Though of the same tone, the words these men whispered determined their fates, their lives
Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaemenids, Macedonians, Selucids
Iron and Fire ravaged the land
I spread the fires, and I made them vanish
Like the men who had caused them
The people of hammers smashed the stones
Masters once again, they would control
Never be controlled
I blew once again, and how quickly they became hypocrites, for they were subjugated once again
The boulders were dismantled, impressed into the defense of the city
Roman children played in their shade
Or were they Jewish children?
I gave strength to their words
The hearths burnt, some angry, some calm
I love to dance in the pale moonlight
Men who looked up to me filled this land
Crowds gathered to listen to the exhortations of strange men
When they died, they tilted their heads to the stars
In great towers of metals and stone I carried the words that brought the city to a stop
The two sticks replaced by a waxing moon
Armored blobs of metal surrounded the city
Wooden contraptions hurled hunks of stone at the walls
The boulders, bound to the wall, were released from their bondage
Trampled over by angry men
I know, I moved the rock that smashed the wall
Red liquid colored the city
Like any other collision between men
Some chanted for Allah and Imams
Others for Jesus and Priests
I flew through the unseen chasm that separated these brothers
Buildings were erected
Men looked up to the sky
More words were said
Rashiduns, Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, the French, Ottomans
The land was full with people
Metal pellets strewn the earth
Spheres of Metal smashed into the sand
The people did not look up, for they jumped high into the skies
Anger felt on all sides
Their heat gave me strength
Zionists, Palestinians, British
Stuck in a locked cell
As the sun beat down on them
The verdant green not yet realized
My breeze helped, but the killings continued
Explosions at buildings where strangers slept
Disturbed my restless pass
The boulders, now small rocks
Were tossed around in the bazaars of the city
Until they hit metal wire
Watched over by men with shiny gadgets
Past and Present collided in new breaths
Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, the West Bank
Men from my domain fell into the city
They cried when they saw the mighty stone built long before their time
Others in the shadows, where they cannot escape the wind, were forced to escape these wailing men
More explosions, guns, and planes
My path more often interrupted
I blew the former boulders down the hill
Whittled, but resilient
A human picked them up
He stared at these stones with passion, and great suffering
rock clutched in hand, he threw it at men in kevlar vests and M16 rifles
One fell, his shouts tossed into the air
A bang broke the cacophony, the man hit the ground
Blood on the streets
You died
I moved
You died
I am the wind
And the wizened boulders were always corrupt
David Leshchiner '23, won his 2020 CIS Israel Writing Prize for his poem about Israel through the millennia, "Wind on the Land." At AU, David is the editor-at-large forThe American Agora, an outlet for political commentary and analysis.Â