by Julie Potiker (San Diego, CA)
Full moon, suspended in vast darkness,
a silent witness to the suffering
and devastation on earth.
Beings throughout time searching the night sky —
full moon in winter, whirling wind moon, hard moon,
cold moon, wolf moon — tribes using language,
claiming the moon as their own.
Tonight the coyotes are howling outside my window.
Haunting Coyote Moon.
Are the hostages in Gaza able to glimpse
the moon tonight? Or are they deep
in underground terror tunnels,
not knowing day from night?
The citizens of Gaza,
mourning their dead,
and rubble of their lives,
under the same moon.
Death Moon, that’s what I imagine
both tribes would call this moon tonight.
Death Moon in Israel.
Death Moon in Gaza.
Would that they could see
the human in each set of eyes.
The coyotes outside my windows tonight
are howling at the moon, the Death Moon.
I pray that by the next full moon,
the bloodshed is slowed to a trickle.
May that be a moon of shared pain,
shared resilience, the slow road
to healing catastrophic trauma
in both tribes, indigenous in the land.
A Hope Moon.
May it be so.
Julie Potiker, a former attorney, is a friend of animals and the earth, a certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher, and founder of the Balanced Mind Meditation Center in La Jolla, California. She is a member of the teaching team at UCSD Center for Mindfulness. Her published books are Life Falls Apart But You Don’t Have To: mindful methods for staying calm in the midst of chaos, andSNAP! From Chaos to Calm, both available on Amazon and Audible. Her upcoming book is a poetry collection of mindfulness poems. She lives in San Diego, California. Visit her website to learn more about her and her work: https://mindfulmethodsforlife.com
The Jewish Writing Project 
Wolf Moon
It’s Wolf Moon time again, January 13, 2025. Last night, as I stared into the vast search light of the almost full moon, my mind grabbed a memory from the prior Wolf Moon, January 25, 2024, 353 days ago, when I wrote a poem about the Israeli hostages in the terror tunnels in Gaza. They had been missing an unfathomable 110 days.
Today it has been 464 days since Hamas unleashed hell and kidnapped 240 souls – babies to grandparents, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Israelis, and foreign nationals from different countries. Innocent humans. It’s mind numbing.
As of this Wolf Moon, it is thought that 98 hostages remain, with half that number presumed to be alive.
I have this strange feeling that maybe I wrote this poem in January of 2023, and not 2024 – but I don’t think so…I was still too shocked and raw then, only four months after the atrocities that should have shocked the consciousness of the entire world. Quickly, I learned that it only shocked some consciousness – I discovered that many in the world support and rejoice in jihad ideology and practice. The rejoicing folk are well funded and have bled into our communities and campus life. That cosmic slap was a wakeup call for me.
This past 464 days has transformed how I view the world. I may feel less safe, but I am fierce in my connection to my peoplehood and their right to exist and defend themselves in their land.
The destruction of the Gaza Strip is tragic. Hamas offered their people’s lives and the lives of their children to turn up the volume on anti-Zionism and Jew hatred. Any time in the last 464 days they could have released the hostages and surrendered to save their people. If they laid down their weapons there would be peace, eventually. If Israel laid down its weapons, it would cease to exist.
I hope and pray that by the next Wolf Moon in 2026, a path for peace will already be underway.
The moon figures in to so many poems with changing persona and meaning. The Death Moon of pain and resilience—so well spoken.