My Trees

Trees are wonderful!

I love trees!

When I was a kid and had a birthday

Or did well in Hebrew School,

What did get?  A tree!

A tree was planted in Israel in my name,

What could be better?

What could be more ecological?

In the empty Negev,

They planted your Jewish tree. 

Screw the Nazis and plant a tree!

And you got a certificate

And imagined that someday when you went to Israel

You would look up your tree

And it would have your name on it.

But I grew up and

God forbid any of these trees

Planted on top of stolen Bedouin villages

In the not at all empty Negev

Have my name on them. 

These killer trees,

Planted in an ecology 

Where they don't belong,

Stealing water they shouldn't have

On land that isn't theirs.

I want my trees back!

I want to sell them

To buy some food for Gaza. 

And don’t shoot anyone 

When they try to pick it up.  

Amen