How Can One Sing A Song Of Joy In A Land Of Pain? Poem by Shalom Freedman

HOW CAN ONE SING A SONG OF JOY IN A LAND OF PAIN?

How can one sing a song of joy in a land of pain?
Is it wise to be kind if happiness is false?
How can one give love when one is not loved?
Or hope when one is deep in one’s own hopelessness?
How can one teach Joy
When one is not in Joy?

We are what we are
Not what we know we should be-
Oh these poems of doubt and question and fear and despair-
Why must I write you?
And not the songs of happiness and love I would give?