What’s the proper period of shiva for a country?
The Talmud gives no direct answer.
But we still mourn for King Solomon’s Temple
Destroyed 2600 years ago.
So perhaps the answer is
We sit shiva for at least 2600 years.
Then shloshim, thirty from our country’s death —
We still mourn, but with less intensity,
And can finally change our clothes?
By the measure of shiva for a country,
Shloshim must exceed ten thousand years.
I won’t be here to finish either sorrow.
I doubt anyone will be here then, anyway,
With His Orange’s finger on the bomb.