Four Hundred and Eighty Years – a Poem for Tisha b’Av

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Gershon Hepner

August 4, 2022

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Four hundred and eighty years had passed

before the Temple could be built,

like buildings, years must be amassed

to be for time, not space, a quilt.

Four hundred eighty years once more

would pass before it was destroyed.

Despite attempts made to restore

it fell once more into a void,

its site now used by Ishmael

for mosque and golden-covered dome.

Quilted, time is like a tale

repeated like a palindrome.

On Av’s ninth day, that’s known as Tisha,

we hold as fast as to deep wells

to time, each faster a well-wisher

who’s hoping that the tale he tells

on it will have a happy ending,

and that a message old and deep

will be the one this day is sending

to all the Jews who on it weep.

Then time’s great “happy ever after”

is seen by all as its profound

inclusion, turning it to laughter

which comes because it rolls around,

just like inclusions of the tales

the Bible tells us, nearly all

wrapped by conclusions, happy tails

we wag when we bad times recall.

Their symmetry is far less fearful

than tigers’ eyes, for though beginnings

of tales it tells are often tearful,

there’s laughter in most final innings.

א וַיְהִי בִשְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה לְצֵאת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ-מִצְרַיִם בַּשָּׁנָה הָרְבִיעִית בְּחֹדֶשׁ זִו, הוּא הַחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי, לִמְלֹךְ שְׁלֹמֹה, עַל-יִשְׂרָאֵל; וַיִּבֶן הַבַּיִת, לַיהוָה. 1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD (1 Kings 6:1)

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.