Sara’s Ohel: Her Life, Her Death

Her laughter

she thought

couldn’t be heard

from the back

of the tent, hidden

forbidden to be face to face

with the messengers of God.

 

Oh how she had longed

to be seized with full belly howling,

freed of shame, of veils,

to fill like a well with God’s laughter

    that first breathe

    that turned us from dust

    into human form

    in our beginning.

 

In the end

all she could do

was wail then

leave her body,

her y’lalah

a shofar’s broken

call to the God

of all unbearable trauma.

 

She left her Yitzchak

seven red candles

concealed in a box carved

from a fallen oak of Mamre

for when he could bear

to return to her ohel

to rekindle the

light, to help him

to remember

how to laugh.