On the day after I die
there is a real possibility
that the sun will refuse
to rise, an appropriate
effort at mourning
which would be appreciated
if I were only there
to not see it.
So I will just take it
on faith, and as for those
of you who survive me
I will apologize in advance
for your day of darkness,
although we both know
you probably had it coming.
They took up shovels,
pickaxes, bare fingers
to pry up the seedlings,
the saplings just taking
root and the seeds
just planted still watered
by the sweat and tears
of those who lovingly
tilled the brittle soil.
They offered nothing
in return, barren ground
where only anger grew,
fertilized by fear, by
by greed, by blindness.
Will we sit by and watch
as promises wither under
an ever stronger, more
glaring sun, as hopes are
blown away by arid winds,
or will we again return
to the soil, start over,
our faith now perennial.
We are, after all, merely human
so we are fraught with questions
and lacking answers, willing
to take things on faith on occasion.
Take God, for example, although
some say He is uniquely exemplary,
we want to know if God is a he,
a she, or to cover all our bases, a they.
And when we ask for a sign we
often look to the heavens as if
God only operate locally, even
Moses knew a bush would suffice.
Actually we hunger for signs now,
in a world gone mad, cursing free
will, wanting proof, when all we
need do is marvel at nature around us.
They arrive after a long flight
from tyranny, from oppression
from the nightmare of endless
fear, from hunger, from faith
denied, from the bottomless
depths of poverty, scarred
memories etched in their souls,
hoping for an ending as much
as wishing for a new beginning.
They have been here, a new
generation, raised on the stories,
versed in the painful history,
still residual anger born
of love for those who fled,
without the pain of experience,
who can forget when it is
others who now wish only
to arrive to the freedom they
have known since childhood
First appeared in Circumference, Issue 5, June 2022
https://poetryatpi.wordpress.com/
He appears, rising from the horizon
the sun at his back, as if a mirage
taking physical shape and form.
He approaches slowly, your eyes
straining to separate him
from the sun’s growing glow.
You wonder if his is a holy man
robed and with a staff, walking
to announce his long awaited return.
As he grows closer, you realize
he is a she , older, in a flowing
dress with a walking stick, not
the returner for who you wish,
but your faith requires that you
continue waiting in hope.
I can still smell the formaldahyde,
see the frog pithed to the board
as I went about dissecting it,
taking copious notes on what
I found, identifying organs,
both of us hidden in a corner
of our fourth grade classroom
so the other students didn’t
feel like they had to vomit.
This Yom Kippur, even though
I no longer practice the faith
of my youth and early adulthood
I shall seek the forgiveness
of the frog who thought
he was giving his life
in the early training of a doctor,
not one who ended up practicing law,
and know he will probably
forgive me for even amphibians
have compassion for us,
despite our obvious shortcomings.
It is a strange feeling to discover that you
have been made a liar by your own DNA.
For years I was Jewish to the core, half
at least Sephardic, Portuguese, and that
not merely extracted but fully blooded.
My diet at Passover expanded greatly,
no longer dictated by Northerners who
easily banned that which they did not grow.
But inquisitiveness got the better of me,
and I learned, and disbelieved, that only
half of me was Jewish, half a polygot
of other faiths, no Sephardic in sight.
It wasn’t as painful as you might imagine,
for I had given up my Judaism well
before the discovery, so what was lost
was no longer mine by claim or right.
It is strange feeling to discover that you
have been made a whole person by your DNA.
I knew you’d show up in my dream,
it was a matter of time and faith,
or perhaps just playing the averages,
sooner or later became sooner, that’s all.
You had nothing to say, but that, too
was to be expected, for I have never
heard your voice, and imagine it akin
to the voice of the GPS or perhaps Siri.
It was just you, not him, it is never him,
and you looked just like you did
in junior year, before you dropped out
when the money got tight during the war.
I have spoken to the other mother, she
carries on monologues so I have cut back
on her visits, that much control I still
maintain over my dreamscape, no more.
My second father wonders if it is strange
being awash in parents, as does my third,
yet at the same time parentless, but
it’s okay, I tell them, after all, I am an orphan.
We have now forgotten what
it is like to take flight, to seek,
to finally find a true freedom
from an always grasping land.
Once we did it out of necessity,
lives incomplete, prisoners
who committed no crime
save those of thought and faith.
Now we only claim to admire
those who seek what we
once did, watch them with
mock awe, but deny them
perch when the journey
for them could end, and even
the birds now shun us, for our
lack of compassion and memory.
She tells me I should rest,
that I need convalescent time,
but I want to tell her, “why,
it isn’t like they stuck a needle
in my eye, so why rest?” but
it actually is just that, but the rest
of my body is none the worse
for the wear on my face,
and it hurts less when I
am doing something other
than thinking about it.
The eye will feel better
in a day or two, they say, and
I have great faith in them,
why else would I let them
stick a needle into my eye,
and anyway, I have a spare
and that is the one that still
works like new, well, almost new
normal wear and tear excepted.
an old writer and his words 