In 1967, I received a letter from the American Embassy:

"If you have no special business in Israel the embassy advises you to leave at once" No special business? But we had said, "Good bye" to Father, brother, son and husband - Called to Arms, to defend our borders. No special business? We pasted up the windows with Scotch tape We put black cardboard over every opening We brought toys into the shelter We bought bandages and iodine For the second drawer On the right side of the cabinet, We dug trenches in the back yard. No special business? Fighting for survival No special business! Because I am an American I am to leave? Odd I had been thinking Just the opposite. Because I am an American I would have to stay! Wasn't it an American who said "That we here highly resolve That these dead shall not have died in vain, That this nation - under God - Shall have a new birth of freedom" Wasn't it an American who said, "It is for us, the living. to be dedicated here To the unfinished work Which those who have fought here Have thus far so nobly advanced"! Didn't that mean me? Now? Just because we are Americans? We listened.. We listened to the planes humming above To the sound of trucks Rumbling on the roads To the sirens that Screamed "Run, run "Run, run like Hell" We weren't very interested In the rest of the world then, The Arabs and the Russians were quite enough! We watched We watched by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed by the twilight's Last gleaming We read the "ancient" history Of the day before, in the papers We heard the unbelievable events Of the moment on the radio "400 Egyptian planes shot down Before they even went up! It was ridiculous It was miraculous It was like when the waters parted And God took us forth With an outstretched hand And Pharoah and his hosts drowned in the sea. We were breathing the air of Miracles Mashiach became a household word. And on the third day Jerusalem was safe Jerusalem was one And the sound of the Shofar Was heard at the Wall And prayers leaped to our lips And ancient words were again heard at the Wall It was a -back to the womb in a way-- Back to the womb of our people We remember the dead at the Wall We mourn for the dead at the Wall We think of the living as well And those who are yet to be born. David, our king, is alive at the Wall His harp we hear at the Wall His Hallelujah is our Hallelujah at the Wall There the Shofar calls To the God of our fathers The Was, the Is, the Yet to Be Is there at the Wall All time, a one time Timeless To the end of days When the lamb shall sleep with the lion And swords will be turned into pruning forks. Timeless At the beginning Beraishit Bara is there at the Wall Our God is there at the Wall Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.