Heshvan,
New moon gives you life.
Your mother has birthed a dozen offspring,
Yet you alone are born as
Nothing Special.
Your sisters were created
To distinguish and differentiate
Themselves,
To make their mark
Inflated with pride, praise
With worship, preparation
And activity.
You alone,
You alone
Live quietly, without a special purpose,
Without mitzvot.
Ordinary.
A newspaper carelessly tossed
On a frost-covered porch.
A tree releasing an orange leaf.
Lipton’s in a glass.
You bring no days of praise,
No fasting into altered state.
No honey cakes or apples.
No latkes or matzo balls.
You leave these culinary arts
To your two closest sisters.
You are Nothing Special.
What a relief!
Despite what some call you,
You are not Bitter,
And you shrug the name away.
You do not complain.
You simply are.
You are
The Repose.
Nothing Special. Who will miss you,
Dear Heshvan,
Gift of Nothing Special?
Who will remember you?
Who will say Kaddish and light
Candles for our mother Rachel, who died
in childbirth
During the month of Heshvan ?
For the murder our leader Yitzak Rabin?
Two tragedies of betrayal and fanaticism,
Within them an ember of faithfulness,
And the hope that courage
Will rise again and again
To become, like you, Nothing Special.
To rest in the joy of the ordinary.
Oh, yes, Heshvan,
Breath of Everydayness,
A coil of DNA whose strands
Of ordinariness and uniqueness
Are conjoined mirror twins.
I am your twin.
If only I could rest, as you do,
in my Nothing Specialness.
From you I learn
I need not strive for uniqueness,
Need not strive to become what I already am
Need not strive to acquire what I already have.
I need only to stop,
Recognize.
Recognize
Seven billion incomparable bridges
From past to future.
Seven billion miracles.
Seven billion resisters.
Igniting the Cosmos with
Universal stories,
Shared sorrows and joys,
Inescapable darkness and light.
Yearning for what might be,
Longing to soothe the heartbreak,
Serving as we can.
But for now, dear Cheshvan,
We are allowed to be at rest.
At rest
In the blessing
being N
