‘One Tiny Seed’ — A hostage’s mother penned a poem for ‘a woman in Gaza’
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose 23-year-old son, Hersh, is being held by Hamas, read the verse as part of a stirring speech to the U.N. in Geneva
Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh Goldberg Polin, speaks before the UN in Geneva. Photo by Getty Images
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of one of the 138 hostages still being held by Hamas, gave a stirring speech to the United Nations in Geneva on Wednesday that included a poem she said she had written “for a woman in Gaza” who “knows who she is.”
Goldberg-Polin’s 23-year-old son, Hersh, was among scores of Israelis abducted Oct. 7 from the Nova music festival a few miles from Israel’s border with Gaza. Witness accounts and images from that morning show that his left arm was blown off by a Hamas grenade. Rachel Goldberg-Polin has since emerged as the international face of the hostage families, speaking poignantly at the U.N. in New York and at the pro-Israel rally in Washington, meeting with the Pope and with President Joe Biden, and giving dozens of interviews to news outlets around the world.
Wednesday’s seven-minute speech in Geneva was for a special event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Look at their photos, read their names, and then replace their names with the name of your own daughter, son, father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, grandparent,” she told the assembly. “And we want you to tell us that you would do exactly what you have been doing for these past 67 days to get them out.”
At the end of a speech that quoted from the Torah and explained the traditional blessing Jewish parents give their children on Friday nights, Goldberg-Polin recited the original poem for the first time. She titled it “One Tiny Seed.” Here is the text:
There is a lullaby that says your mother will cry a thousand tears before you grow to be a man.
I have cried a million tears in the last 67 days.
We all have.
And I know that way over there
there’s another woman
who looks just like me
because we are all so very similar
and she has also been crying.
All those tears, a sea of tears
they all taste the same.
Can we take them
gather them up,
remove the salt
and pour them over our desert of despair
and plant one tiny seed.
A seed wrapped in fear,
trauma, pain,
war and hope
and see what grows?
Could it be
that this woman
so very like me
that she and I could be sitting together in 50 years
laughing without teeth
because we have drunk so much sweet tea together
and now we are so very old
and our faces are creased
like worn-out brown paper bags.
And our sons
have their own grandchildren
and our sons have long lives
One of them without an arm
But who needs two arms anyway?
Is it all a dream?
A fantasy? A prophecy?
One tiny seed.
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