For Yom HaZikaron, 5785

Today, the siren sounds,
and the world holds its breath.

Shoes stop mid-stride,
buses freeze on open roads,
and a nation remembers
what it means to love so hard
that it breaks you.

The air is heavy with names—
some carved in stone,
some still fresh in the wind,
some never even spoken aloud
because their voices were silenced
before they could speak.

This year, the grief is not memory.
It is presence.
It is dust.
It is a mother still waiting for a knock that will never come.

We lower our heads,
not just in mourning
but in reverence—
for the lives that held the line,
for the hands that shielded strangers,
for the hearts that beat their last
so that others could keep beating.

We remember not to glorify death,
but to dignify life—
to say that it mattered.
That they mattered.
That they still do.

We remember
the uniformed and the unarmed,
the soldier and the singer,
the border guard and the baby.
Every one a thread in the same tattered flag.

And we whisper through tears:
We will carry you.
We will build with your memory.
We will not forget.

For the land still needs tending.
The future still needs defending.
And we—
broken as we are—
still believe in peace.

May their memory be a blessing.
May their sacrifice be a seed.
And may this day
teach us to hold each other
like we never want to let go.