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Praise the fallen world
and its dreamy terrors.
Praise the false certainty
of unflickering leaders
and their certain masses.
No one knows better.
My cravings crave solitude.
My cravings crave space
It is too early and too late to dream.
My sister-God braids my hair for
it has grown since the mirrors wore black.
It is too early to die, too late to be born.
I have carrots to chop, soup to cook, a child to read to.
The soup tastes weak; it is mixed with lost time.
Uncle Yosele, may you rest peacefully
outside Tel Aviv in the makeshift hospital
where cousin Bati watches over you.
She told me how you hid under a car
for two days without water,
how you saw your son Ron massacred
holding the hand of his daughter, Sarah.
Hashem, and the Heavenly Court, enter
the Beit Knesset on Rosh Hashanah
to open The Books.2
uNetaneh Tokef3 softly wafts through the hall and
Hashem opens the first page of The Book;
tears unexpectedly fall from His eyes.
the angels of the Heavenly Court are bewildered–
Hashem turns over the page and tears
continue to fall like the waters of
the Simchat Beit Hashoeva4