The Temple Doors Poem by Frank Bana

I'm waiting for the Temple doors to open up again
The day we hold each other's hands and may enter where
I was in spirit raised, behind the gates of stone
Marked with the necessary stain of learning histories
Of sufferings and art, my tribe's philosophies

But Temple doors are closed and not by our enemies
But by a pestilence that, for once, is not laid upon us
Nor can be laid at any door, for in this our distress
The new Angel of Death carries no tattoo mark or race -

She breathes and we are mortal, for she is oblivious
To how we worship, and with whom we chose to love or hate
And gives no prophesy of when she passes over us

We are not summoned up now to read the scrolls of G-d
We are not asked to worship, nor to praise the Name
Our call is to be human, practicing the ways
Of daily placing hands on hearts, to know it deep and full
That we, the chosen genus, must come to peace and dwell
At temples of the inner word, and understand it well.

Pillars of our History, white pillars of the wise
They do not stand a hundred years, but easily they yield
Not to the massacres of men, the ravage of disease
But to forgotten memory, at the repentance gates
That men are now too sunk in pride to enter on their knees

By each third generation, we must be taught the pain
Of some disaster that our covenant is destined to reclaim
To stand and join our hearts, connect our hands and pray
To the One who may not be, and to One who may
And when the prayer we speak is Love, it has become the same
For on that day the Temple doors will open wide again.