Remembering,
And forgetting.
Forgetting what we should
Remember;
Remembering what we should
Forget.
As with music’s rawest tensions,
Compassion leads by its push
To elevations far beyond
A sojourn amongst
Memory’s imperfections.
The Sefat Emet instructs
On yet another human task
Of repair:
The labor of gathering
Truth’s thousand splinters
Following God’s act
Of throwing Her down
To adom.
The truth-telling of Family
Can be a complicated business.
While pressing himself
Into a trauma-chiseled cheek,
Yehuda humbly whispered
Perhaps all Yosef needed to recall.
“Father.”
Image: JosephJacob's eldest son by his beloved wife, Rachel. Joseph, the dreamer, was his father's favorite and nearly murdered by his brothers. Sold into slavery, he became viceroy of Egypt where he ultimately saves the Egyptians and also his own family from starvation. His Hebrew name is Yosef/ Recognized by His Brothers (1863 painting by Léon Pierre Urbain Bourgeois, public domain).
