A Rabbi once told me that
if you want to get to heaven,
something Jews don’t believe in,
you must atone to those you
have harmed, or injured
before you die.
I’ve started making a list,
and it feels like I am in
some wierd version of
High Fidelity, but mine
is more than a top five.
I’ve made a few efforts,
some accepted, some not,
but I have come to realize
that if I don’t believe in heaven
and I was a lawyer for years,
there is no way I am
getting in, atoning or not.
Last night in my sleep
I though I heard an angel
althougn I could not, for trying,
understand what it was saying,
and it is odd since I
do not believe in angels.
Perhaps it was the cat,
but if so she has come up
with a new voice, using words
not formerly in her vocabulary,
but you put nothing
past a cat, ever.
I did ask the cat if she
had called out during the night
but she said it was not her,
and she wondered who
was in my room singing
in voice far sweeter than mine.
I have already visited
countless churches
basilicas, shrines
and admired the art,
the simple beauty,
free of liturgy and belief.
I did not stop
to pray, to implead,
merely to see,
to listen, to absorb.
for I was a Jew.
a nonbeliever
in a Christian world
silently tolerated.
Now, I have learned
I was only half Jewish,
half, hidden a polyglot
of Christianity,
a descendant of saints,
and now churches
have a heavy weight
I find hard to bear.
All too soon, I will return
as a ghost and how you
and others deal with that
has yet to be seen, although
know that ghosts are
reflective, and your thoughts
will determine both my presence
and mood during such visits
as I choose to make to you.
You may not believe
in ghosts, I did not for years,
but as you approach
that state of post-being
you realize that ghosts
arrive in dreams and you
are helpless to control them,
so lie back, enjoy me
when I visit, for I have
an eternity of options
too soon at my disposal.
He says he is waiting patiently
for the arrival of heaven on earth.
He is not sure what that will be like
and the descriptions he has seen
are too fantastical to be believed,
all clouds and angels and music
He is hoping the things he loves
most will be available in heaven,
a good Alfredo sauce and German
chocolate cake, for two, but
heaven should be Starbucks-free,
since he will be able to drink
espresso at any hour, for you have
no need of sleep in heaven.
Until that moment comes, he will
sit for hours in the neighborhood
Starbucks because of its free wifi
and search for the best top ten
lists of ways to avoid hell and where
you can get wifi and
a good decaf espresso.
It is all well and good to believe
that you will know it when you find it,
that it will be so obvious you could not miss it.
You’ve been down that road before,
and on several occasions were certain
that you’d found it in her face, or hers,
in her smile, or her laugh, or one
of their soft touches and caresses.
You were wrong each time, a facsimile
at best, an avatar if you wish, so you
are determined to be prepared this time,
for there must be a this time you are certain.
You have read all the best books, consulted
on the internet, careful to sort the wheat
from the chaff, skimmed the cream of the offerings,
and have practiced reading the tea leaves.
You dare not miss it so you maintain a high
level of vigilance and a focus that is not
easily interrupted, ready to spring,
but know that it defies logic, that the mind
is useless in its presence, and that it is
the heart not the head that feels true love.
She wants to know if it is even possible
to make a bandage large enough
to bind the wounds we have inflicted
on a planet which we were told
was ours over which we were
to exercise our wise dominion.
She says it isn’t fair that she will be
left to try to clean up the mess
that we have made for it was our
world too, though she adds, we were
not very good at sharing with others.
I want to apologize and tell her
that she is right, that we adults
have failed her generation but
I know she won’t believe me, for
we could have stopped this, but we
always looked out for ourselves
always wanted just a bit more
always were too busy to notice
assumed the others would handle it
said there was nothing we could do.
We hope one day you will
forgive us although we have done
nothing to merit any absolution.
First appeared in The Poet: A New World, Autumn 2020
It’s a question of faith.
You have to have some
even if you doubt it, in fact
your doubt is proof you have faith
if only in doubt, for you know
you cannot prove doubt,
you just cling to it
as a matter of faith.
Your faith need not be religious
though much of faith is,
it can be philosophical
or whimsical if you prefer.
It can be most anything unless
you are certain of everything
in which case you are immortal,
on death’s doorstep
or simply a fool.
ON A SIDE NOTE, TWO OF MY POEMS WERE JUST PUBLISHED AT GRAND LITTLE THINGS. YOU CAN FIND THEM HERE: https://grand-little-things.com/2020/07/21/two-poems-by-louis-faber/
It is the wet season
when the rains wash the village
carrying off the detritus of poverty.
On the adobe wall
of the ancient town hall
some villagers say
a face appeared one morning.
To some it was
the face of Christ
to others that of an old man
a former mayor, perhaps,
to most of the tourists
from the nearby resort
no more than random discoloration
of the aging plaster
that clung to the beams
by the force of will.
They arrived by bus
and rusting pick ups,
bowed to the wall
and reached out gingerly
like children touching
the flame of a candle.
To the mason it was
a job that would feed
his family for another week.
They hide in corners, and you think
you can see them, but you cannot be certain
for they are vague and could be no more
than wishes, but belief is sufficient.
As you grow older, the number of corners grow
and a universe of but eight corners
is now itself tucked in a corner of memory.
One corner hides the face of the man
who adopted me, watched for two years,
before departing suddenly, and the only item
I have is his diploma rolled up in a tube
where my own accomplishments are rolled.
In another corner the day I met the man
I now call father is so deeply buried
only his present, increasingly absent
aging face is all I can see.
Memories are elusive, appearing
and disappearing without warning
day by day the oldest evanesce
and that corner is filled
by another memory grown vague.
an old writer and his words 