Kaddish
The mourners within me rise
for the sake of the forgotten,
for the sake of the slaughter, for the sake
of the wounding,
the broken, the grief.
Clouds and Clearing
Which are the clouds
of Holiness and which
the fog of our own
making –
Shma: She Who Listens
Shma – listen, receive
what has been broken,
longs to return, open
the dark cramped places, let
walls crumble, let pain lift,
all the tired, overused burdens.
Constructing An Altar
I clear a space for praise, placing three stones, loosened from well worn shoes,
beside essence of sage, still green slivers of thyme, and lavender – the scent
wanders towards my drying skin and spine, filling in the cracks. I place
Without
Without breasts
a woman’s heart
rounds and softens her body,
bears her milk.
Mystery
Between the dark cocoon
and the last flight
inside the threading of light
into motion and wing
in the middle of vast hunger and feasts
a single azure bowl
brimming with emptiness
Beginnings
There she sat in her void
life and word still a dark whole
and she said: let there be
self, and there was
pink flailing breathing –
reaching to find the familiar edges
of what had been womb.
Vayakhel Moshe: Moshe Summons Us And We Try Again
I hear him calling
from my closed tent –
gather assemble
come to the fire.
Let’s try again
to retrieve the trust
shattered with the first tablets
Lev Pharaoh: His Hardened Heart/Mind
Bo come into the captive
mind of Pharaoh, hardened,
stiffened. made resistent:
va’yichazak, va yi’cabad, va yi’kashe
After Colleyville
we stand again
at the foot of the mountain of God
and everything is speaking to us
terror and beauty,
in language that is beyond
the knowable