colors

December 24, 2019

GAME, SET, MATCH

As a child, a Jewish child no less,
December was always a bit difficult.
We had Channukah, which no Jew
would dare claim grew solely to compete
with Christmas, although we all knew
that was precisely what had happened.

The problem was Christmas, but had
nothing to do with Jesus, or the church
or even its historical teachings about
the supposed role we Jews played
in that story, a role for which we
had been paying for two millennia.

The problem was far more basic,
and all you needed to do was drive
down virtually any street in any city
and it would be at once apparent.
Christmas-celebrating homes were decked
out in all colors of lights, while
Jewish homes, those few who competed,
were left with a palate of white
and blue, or up to nine candles,
and that was a guaranteed for sure
last place finish in the December game.

September 22, 2019

HAT

It is hard for even me to remember
that there once was a time when
every man wore at hat, whether
a simple watch cap or Greek
fisherman’s hat, a fedora to be
avoided if you value your life,
a bowler of great propriety.

I wear a simple Nepalese hat
a reversible pillbox style, and actually
I have a dozen in various colors,
and they draw more comments
than I ever would, often taken
for a kufi, and I have brothers
from other worlds now, despite
the gulf of colors and histories
which in that moment are bridged.

And no one imagines that it
is more than a fashion statement
since no one gets to ask the few
lonely hairs that still cling
to my ever more barren scalp.

January 27, 2019

OH, THE PLACES

“Every book is a picture book,”
she says, with that certain wisdom
the that comes from being seven,
even though eight is far off on the horizon.
“The difference with some,” she claims,
“is that someone already drew all the lines
and colored in the pictures.”
She likes the books, she concludes,
where she gets to draw the pictures
in her mind, change them freely
and choose whatever colors she likes
at any given moment, and the next time
she reads the book, they can all be different.

September 18, 2017

DROPPING

As night settles in
the clouds grow uncertain
of their intentions.
It is hard to realize
that a boundary
is silently crossed
and summer has
retreated into the past,
leaving a new season
in its wake, harder
to know that tomorrow
we will awaken into
an autumn that at first
seems no different
then her mother, only
the promise of fall-
ing leaves soon painting
her in her true colors.