Minyan With Mountain

Along the way

I gather revelatory rocks

with human eyes

spiraled snakes, scattered alphabets

etched by water, deer steps, winged

landings, illuminating my own face

stone by stone.  Every step an arrival,

a departure.  I bend my knees and rise

for in this moment I am

simply a congregation

singing my belonging

in the sanctuary of my one lonely

body weaving into mountain,

lifting and lifted by the blue and white

sky-ed tallit extending to the four

corners and so it is that every prayer

can be sung until the final nigun

signals descent.

Scattered rocks

reveal their texts:

a yud here, a vov there.