For Yehuda

Love is elusive.

On first arrival, it is elation.

On second, fear.

On third, desire, and hope.

Haha, says love, now you are hooked, for hope is the opium of the human heart.

A Meditation

If I am to pray, if I must pray

To an all-understanding and interventionist creator.

I demand my birthright of wisdom, honesty, and clarity;

I pray for my cognitive health and intellectual development.

I pray for my body and mind to cooperate in their beautiful capacity,

And my soul, should I have one, to be shielded from the daily back-and-forths of Jerusalem.

That my mind and body should not be weakened by the land,

That they should pursue absolute truth in their journeying,

That clarity should follow and free me, from any untrue thing-

For this I pray.

The Name II

You remind me of your presence in the most torturous ways;

A curled leaf, loving sex, a beautiful breastfeeding mother.

How could I ever have doubted the single source

Of such a work of love and art?

I am reminded, and silenced.

The Name

For the first time, ever,

I forced my lips to be silent

Upon meeting their daily bread.

No bracha departed from their

Opening.

Instead, I forced myself to think about the creative impulse

And whether it was evidence enough

That you are-

That you exist.

But surely the survival of an orphan

In a distant land

With a single suitcase-

Surely that, is enough to suffice my demand for hard facts.

Perhaps my yearnings,

My quest for pure truth,

Means the wind is changing.

We need you right here, sitting quietly beside us,

Proof that we have not suffered centuries in vain.

We need you here, or we need you not to exist.

After the Rain

A new feeling

Of being completely finished

With old habits that died hard.

I dragged my soul to the underbelly of the world for you, G-d.

Now we must separate, perhaps

For good.

Of Troy

This feeling of unease clouds my thoughts.

Was it the mob outside my window,

Or grief, etched into the underground of my memory, forever rearing its head?

Tragedy is what we make out of trauma

Long after the purple becomes yellow.

If only there were a less fear-based system of self-protection.

Pulse

I pray the rain will drive you home,

Wild deer,

Racing through our land

As though a hunter had ripped your heart out,

And were still

After you.

Noach III

There are two dark shadows under your eyes;

Carrying the weight of the Jewish people;

Carrying my baggage and yours.

We may have argued about whose hands

Were better qualified to hold the reins

Of my little life.

I see now

Intuition as always

Stood between me and destruction.

What a struggle

To not become a tragic person

In the midst of tragedy-

Tragedies.

Noach II

Here we are

On the edge of the world

On the edge of humanity;

Slightly above and slightly below-

Trying to accommodate the contradictions

Rooted in the yiddishe neshume.

Naturally, it is an unsustainable project.

One can only go so far before

Cognitive stability begins to break down colourfully,

And a kaleidescope of adventures happens upon us.

And naturally, we are not responsible for any of this.

We just built the fire and opened the matchbox.

The world burns and we watch, confused.