When the cunning wind of Kislev
sneaks under your door,
wrap yourself in trust. Watch
the early waning moon descend.
Retreat into the blackness.
There is nothing else you can do.
Nothing else you can do.
Now, in the womb
of the cosmos, restless, waiting,
deep into the ninth month,
you dream of the birth of
Light.
It is a long, dark night.
When Light arrives,
Oh, how she brightens a room.
Oh, how thankful you are.
Candles are lit.
Songs are sung. Stories are
spun. Latkes sizzle in oil.
Children scramble for gelt,
gamble it away with
dreidels made of cruel, shiny plastic
or sometimes wood – a gift from
the maple tree, meticulously carved, sanded
and weighted into a work of
functional art.
Light lingers, lengthens.
She opens her arms,
stretches subtly
beyond the next new moon
two days into the month of Tevet.
Hers is the only festival
empowered to span two moons.
For eight days Light cries
out to you, assures you
it is safe now
to bring your whole self out,
out from the shadows.
You whirl and shimmer,
alive in the blue and gold glow
of the flames, a swirl of neon.
The ancestors breathe within you.
You melt onto the earth
sleek as dripping wax
in a pattern
elegant, surprising, mesmerizing.
Countenance shines
upon your face, upon all the faces.
Again, you can see.
Again, you are seen.
