Shevat

 

 

The cold month between winter and spring, in fullest gestation.
A tree of life thrusts its roots into earth.
Its trunk is guarded with thorns.
Its crown reaches for the heavens.

 

At sunset the oryx finds water inside shrubs.
Magician of the desert, it links its straight horns to the sky.

 

Rachel is pregnant as the moon of Shevat, in deepest winter,
agitation in her womb.
The sap begins to run as the child kicks inside her.
In Shevat, a time for counting, for marking the age of trees.
Rachel will know birth and death as the almond leaves open.

 

In Shevat we honor the taste of fruit
and how we have chosen to arrange our lives.
We carry an oracle on our shoulders like the high priest’s onyx.
We hold our tribal scepter.

 

We dream and let visions carry us,
looking neither right nor left,
as we climb.
We take in the sadness of young trees falling
in wartime to create a world we did not want.

 

The oryx thrives where there are no gardens.
Its dreams bring down mist from the clouds.