Thursday, August 17, 2017

Adonai Dayam Ha-Emet - final version

Adonai Dayan ha-Emet          
God is the One True Judge                            

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                                                 [Our Father, Our King]
Once, if I were honest, more than once, much more,
I wish I still lived alone
Just me, my pens, my books
And the ducks, murmuring under the street lamp.
Train whistles,
Who’s ready? Who’s willing? Who’s able?
            All Aboard!

Aveinu Malkeinu, Chaneinu V'aneinu                             [Our Father, Our King,
But I do not live alone.                                                       Be gracious and answer us]
Other people, things, inhabit this temporary home,
            Of bodies and offal
            On the search for real
I, responsible for detritus, distracted and rerouted
By not alone. Home is a vial of ash.

Ki ein banu ma'asim.                                                                   [For we have little merit]
In my heart, I am always alone.

Ase imanu,                                                                                     [Treat us with kindness]
Midnight.  I feed the ducks, throwing stale bread upon the water.
At sunrise, they sit on the edge of the eave and
Stare through the pane.
I am afraid that they, hungry, will break the glass.

Tzedakah vachesed,                                                                    [And be our help]
I am a walking suicide.

Ase imanu, tzedakah vachesed,                                                [Treat us with kindness,
I am more alone than I am with,                                                 And be our help]
More surprised when not surprised by the shadows of others
As they talk in the galleries
And I make tea and sandwiches
And salt the buttered bread
Memory of the dead and nearly dead and
Might as well be dead and draped mirrors
Playacting that I connect with those I serve.

Vehoshiyeinu.                                                                               [And save our people]
The conductor holds the door, impatient,
Calling me night after night.
All aboard! Where’s your ticket,
Reading the numbers inked
on the inside of my forearm.

The ducks sing Adonai dayan ha-emet                                   [God is the True Judge]
And then I hear nothing.


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Adonai dayan ha-emet: God is the True judge
Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melach Haolem, dayan ha-emet.
The Hebrew blessing on hearing of a death :
Blessed is the Eternal One, Ruler of the Universe, the True Judge.

From the High Holy Day Services, a Prayer for Forgiveness
Aveinu Malkeinu,                                Our Father, our King,
Chaneinu V'aneinu,                             Be Gracious and Answer us
ki ein banu ma'asim.                          For we have little merit.
Ase imanu tzedakah vachesed,           Treat us with kindness, be our help
vehoshiyeinu.
                                    And save our people.
Aveinu Malcheinu, be gracious and answer us, for we have little merit.
Treat us generously and with kindness, and be our help.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Road Trash

Sparkles of early morning light distract so I stop,
pull out of traffic onto the grassy embankment
wondering what tidbit discard  did I find,
there, on the edge of noisy busy nowhere
with no pedestrian access.

Only cars trucks buses exceeding the posted speed limits
by a radar detection margin
and the occasional bicyclist, traveling slow enough
for aberrant markers pass along  this byway to tourist heaven,
littered with fast food debris and other:

Shattered keyboard from a child’s computer
keys scattered, wires and circuits and
chips loose, curly plastic connecting the stylus.
A few feet away, a stuffed dog,
chewed, worn, weathered, loved, at some past time.

Which was the anger and which the revenge?
And who how much more I have had it up to there!
did not stop for wails of regret
to retrieve these precious
because it was lesson time?

The dog is missing an eye.
I reassemble the readalong,
tether the dog with the stylus,
and mark their passing with wildflowers,
another roadside tragedy.

Bed's Too Big

No more boxes.
Pack the rest, disgusted, detritus, debris.
Toss it in a pillowcase, doesn’t matter anyway. 
A striped yellow and pink pillowcase. Hers.  
Stripes worn and faded, from the double bed. 
Before they upgraded to a king. 
A king size bed, so much more room.
Life was good.
And when life was not good? 
So much more room to hug the ends of the bed.
Avoid ‘accidentally’ touching each other. 
In a double bed, you always bump each other. 
Can’t go to sleep angry in a double bed.   
In a king, the hurts can lay there.
They lay there, right in the middle of the bed. 
The hurts send out suckers all night long,
Grow new branches, push the root systems deeper. 
How many piles on the floor?
Splitting a household is much tougher than merging. 
Merging was gradual, books, clothes, pots and pans. 
Separation sudden. Picking apart who got what?
Figuring out what gets kept, what gets sold?
They did not have the luxury of time for that, 
Each eager to have a new life. 
He looked at the pillowcases, her pillowcases
filled with the sheets and towels he was taking.
His new life wrapped in a bit of her old life. 
And no bed to put them on.

Rejected sheets, towels, clothes, sundries
heaps on the garage floor. 
He kicked them, then walked through the piles,
scattering them down the driveway.
Sometimes.  Just sometimes.  But sometimes
Love is not enough.

What I See

I ride, a steady A pace,
of eighteen to twenty miles per hour
serene in the early morning
absence of traffic,
considering the tasks and pleasures
the day ahead will bring
the projects I’ll work on
once the endorphins kick in
clearing the week’s debris from my brain
the spectrum of stress and
Too many demands
Too many shut doors
Too many lost in space requests.

I see things, details that only a red light allows
but on a bicycle, the constant head swivel
ensuring safety
lets me see things a
two ton fiberglass shell hides.
I wonder why, who, leaves these markers
relics of Some Life, lost or abandoned,
Some Life changed in some way
from what was yesterday.

I see things. And stop.
A bicycle can stop anywhere.
Pull over onto median, shoulder, curb,
stop and reflect
at the growing crop
of roadside memorials
crosses and stakes, draped with ribbons,
dried flowers, stuffed bears, empty beer cans.
They spring up like daisies
victims of DUIs and drive-bys.

Every day I see new ones
replacing the abandoned, windwrecked
tides of only I remember what was there before.

Spreading, popping up, they send out shooters
and increase exponentially.

I stop, bewildered, by the creek,
water level a fraction of a few weeks ago
when the hurricane rainy season
had water lapping the trail.
Now, matted grass edges the creek bed revealing
an old child’s carseat,
and perhaps fifty feet on,
A stroller. On the bank, a matted blanket.
Where is the child that held these?
Is he safe? Is she hungry?

I see things I can do nothing about and ride on.