Vayigash

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: Joseph Recognized by His Brothers (1863 painting by Léon Pierre Urbain Bourgeois, public domain).

 

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