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High Holiday Meditation on the 47th Anniversary of My Father’s Death

abstract image of wire shapes filled with prismed bubbles
 
When I feel most broken
 
pulled apart     when every door unhinged
 
is opened     but feels closed
 
for too many paths there   then it is
 
prayer    with past intention    wells up
 
and present air so bright    it nearly
 
suffocates    with future deep
 
and full beyond knowing.    The spinning
 
on the head of a pin    who is angel    real?
 
All the company there    here    messengers
 
to and for each other?    My dearest
 
friends    closest-to-heart    flailing as I
 
in cavernous winds    bodies  ailing
 
strewn right and left    and it is
 
somewhere decreed    not by punishing
 
judge    but somehow    maybe just the air
 
we breathe    Who shall live and who shall
 
die?    Weep and laugh with the same sigh
 
at the take and give life brings    whispers
 
sings    shouts in the ear    and hear
 
try to hear    can’t help but hear    wisdom.
 
Gasp for    try and grasp without grasping
 
all the syllables    all the hip hop un-
 
understood    the bass too loud    the
 
thumping in my chest I want a rest from
 
not permanently though.    I want to hear
 
the words    get their gist.    TV    internet
 
fireflies        Torah’s music    all electric pulse
 
saving me    from ann-I-hilation?
 
Here am I    waiting.
 
I am here.

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