The Empress
Bare shoulders walking through the trees
New green leaves feather-light
against your skin
Fruits ripen in your hands
and you relish in their sweet juice
as it drips down your chin
Your dark eyes are ablaze
with a powerful nurturing
warmth
protection
love
Hair kinked and elegant
Smile vivacious and wide
Sitting in wheat fields
Demeter at your side
Crops flow forth with a glance
Your skin is warm
under your fingers
belly round with life
the sun fills your womb
and it pulses with the life of the world
The two of you sit
in a calm meeting
your voices are soft but strong
laughter full of mirth
Every breath bright
with the love you have to give
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An Elegy on the Death of A Child
There was a time where
he laughed loudly, bright
And unabashed there
Roaming forests, voice alight
Singing freely and passion flared
he grew in time with Spring’s green saplings
Buds of selfhood blossoming
How quickly he choked upon the frost
How quickly that childhood spark was lost
Voice breaking and song fracturing
The towering pines weep their needles
falling on his little form
blanketing his meek remains
floating in his pooling pains
Ice entrapping him - forlorn
within his deep, forgotten tomb
his tiny fingers clutch his soul
Before he crumpled under fear
He cried and stumbled unafraid
He made mistakes and shed his tears
boldly, blissfully unashamed
When Spring still sang it's jaunty tune
His voice was strong, unwavering
Without worry that his words would turn
and twist and make his stomach churn
from Winter’s windy, roaring croon
He could still trust himself to begin
For years his body sat and stewed
in fear’s rancid and rotten broth
he marinated in guilt’s sour brew
Forgotten in some toxic trough
Murdered, silenced, beaten down
Until his breath was soft and slight
Unbridled joy that he had known
Stifled under her icy fright
But now and then I hear his voice
Whispering as wind through leaves
I feel his small hand holding mine
Telling me that I can shine
Offering that fearless choice
of blossoming through Winter’s freeze
I’m not yet strong enough to go
and dig him from that darkened place
But someday I’ll reach through the snow
past the guilt and shame and blight
to embrace myself and walk alight
with His earnest smile on my face
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Dissociation
The cityscape is glassy
Horizon too close
Or too loud?
The strings of traffic,
footfalls
fragments of conversations
too loud, too distant
Bowed harshly like an angry child
scraping across the violin
The world ripples
sharp and jagged
I could reach out and press my palm to its surface
Like a pane of glass
Memories surface unbidden
and drift away
listless and oblique
watered down
My senses fumble and fall
everything static
lukewarm
Drifting from hour to hour
I don’t expect you to understand
how could you?
why would it matter anyway?
The violinist’s bow strings snap
And in that moment
I finally am
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Inherited Echoes
There are days when I remember
The shtetl I’ll never see
Great aunts and uncles I’ll never meet
The dust and dark
That choked my great-grandfather
a coal miner
the whispered prayers
changed names
the candles snuffed out
The hours
weeks
years
spent pretending
not to be
There are days I remember
My own whispers
The looks I got
calling my father papa
saying bracha before I ate
refusing baptism
with hands so small
they could barely hold a pencil
I have inherited journeys
years of wandering
through deserts
snowfields
unfriendly cities
I have inherited stories
Songs of mourning
bitter work
hardship
But on those days
when my great-grandparents’ voyage
across oceans, across worlds
feels closest
I remind myself of the songs of joy
of the challah recipes
the prayers sung with voices
loud and shaking, rejoicing
They never made it to the promised land
they never got to see their candles
standing proud on a shabbos table
but I know they hear my voice now
they see me on the bima
holding the torah for all to see
they rejoice with me
in all our hardship
I have inherited journeys
hardships
sorrow
but also the strength
the joy
the passion
to stand up
and keep walking
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Ancestral
Wrinkled hands hold mine
Soft and weathered
shaking but strong
Our tears join,
a sacred river
flowing back through ages
to its origin
For my fear is their fear
my joy their joy
We look out
across an impossible earth
sharing our eyes
and I am grateful for my ancestor’s
smile lines around my eyes
reminding me as I squint and shake with joy
that we have always laughed and loved
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The High Priestess
Silk and leather
Ritual robes swath her form
An elusive, many ringed hand slips
just out of reach
I knew her once
So long the memory is just a shade
Every so often I just catch her
in the twinkle of sun off water,
a gentle breeze,
a night of laughter,
the feeling of a hand against mine
but she is gone as quickly
as she came
I reach for her jeweled embrace
for her quiet wisdom
she whispers
tries to meet me
but she is lost
or perhaps I am
Somewhere deep
I know what drove her to run
What stole my intuition’s sly, knowing smile
Melting, writhing fear choked her
with its jointed, spindly legs
Now she runs
like her sisters years before
finding little ways to show me
despite the fear
she’s still alive, somewhere
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Bodies
We are marble,
carved and molded stone
liquid like a river
spry as young saplings
Skin as warm as candlelight
smooth as freshly fallen snow
dark and light
shadows flickering
Do not hide us,
shuffle us away
Display us in our splendor
folds and dimples, muscle and blood
The hefts and stutters of breath
Hips
Mouth
I let my eyes flick over our naked forms
like stones across a lake’s clean surface
thinking
“We are beautiful,
who would dare try to shame us?”
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The Magician
A spark,
a hand reaching out into the fire
grasping at embers
building a home
Discover the magic
of creation once again
Shine like Apollo
bold and irreverent
Let the flames touch you
liquid and hot
get drunk off their smoke
unknowably dark
For deep in that fire
creativity blooms
energy dances
Calling for you
So grasp that reaching hand
tanned from holding the sun
run with Apollo
and sing all the while
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Pages
My pages are worn and bent,
Tattered, spilled on, crumpled up,
Overfolded again and again,
Shoved in pockets, hanging stuck
Withering in shadowed dark
or bleached by harsh, uncertain sun.
Fear stamped over what used to be,
My small handwriting old and sure
waiting for someone to see through
all the mess and wear and gore
to who I used to be before
and to the affectionate doodles
and notes put there for me to see
But I closed my eyes long ago
Unable to bear the wretched score
I tumbled out of my own hands
And sprawled all tangled across the floor
Out of order and fanned out
I’d stooped but only fumbled more
I stared unblinking, bowed and blind
overwhelmed at the mess mislaid
I felt the thick, oppressive stain
of judgement pressing down like rain
Melting away cover and spine
till I was raw and pale and shamed
afraid to lift my wounded head
and collect myself up to be read
So there I crouched, red-eyed and sheer
looking away for all those years
when I found the strength to look again
to smooth myself and pick up my pen
my fingers creaked and split and bled
for I’d been folding all those years,
tight and stiff to hold their words
I’d forced myself to bend and crack
so that I could barely hear
And now I sit here on the ground
Sorting through the mess I’ve found.
Sometimes it’s too much
tight and wound
and the tears from my open eyes
fall to break their thick ink down
My words are there, still legible
I’m still learning to be vulnerable enough
to see me there
collecting my pages
slowly
tear by tear
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With You
Sink with me
Share my breath
and let me taste yours
When you reach into my chest
Be gentle
So I may feel the texture of your soul
I may flinch
and pull away
but I promise I’ll come back
to feel with you again
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All Words
Take every word
A dead man spoke in life
And form it into song
We are all poets
Simply taught
different ways to sing
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At Home, Aloft
I have lain
crystallizing
staring up at the smooth felt sky
so close my fingers graze
its subtle soft surface
Pinpricks of light shine through
Holes left over from stitches pulled free
And my mind tries to peek through
to the other side of the stars
Searching
Hands, feet, neck
eyes
all fall away -
left behind
I’m on my way across that tide,
A breath from breaching
A thought away from time
But then a flash captures my eyes
and holds me close
Arching and white-hot
It intercepts my wandering mind
Passion flooding my discarded bones
Movement, feeling: Paradise.
It’s gone as quickly as it came
But I remain, buzzing anew
We were fleeting but I saw you
Now my breath comes flooding
cold and crisp
Fixing my body back to me
Burning through my vast expanse
And standing small
and filled with light
Those words had always echoed through
soft and strong
I’d held on tight
But I stand loose and swaying now
Surface tilting and aloft
And I repeat the words we shared -
“You and I - we’ll always move.”
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A Visit
I want to find my way to you
See you,
touch you
prove that you’re still real
I want to find my way to you
to see if you’ve forgotten me
or maybe make sure you haven’t
Thought I know there’s nothing I can do
if you have
I want to find my way to you
make you smile, maybe
or read to you
or just sit and know you’re there
I want to
but I’m afraid
to see you frail and small
to remember how you were
If I see you, then you’re real
Maybe it’s selfish
It feels selfish
The garden is is wilting
but the grass is green
I hope you have flowers.
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Blue/Grey
A grey wash
What used to be electrifying
Empathetic
folds over to nothing
I don’t recall what it looks like
so it’s difficult to miss
But blue still feels the same
when it hums through me
In the brisk light of morning
or the rippling of the waves
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Is This Life?
A jumble of thoughts and fears
Standing to fight the battle
again and again
every day
Is this life -
always bracing for the next hit,
readying the rebuttal
staring down the barrel
What if I am tired of fighting
against life?
What happens when life wins?
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Hairbrush Blues
On the toilet in the bathroom
Legs swinging
I had run away
fast as I could
but now I’m caught
Sitting on the toilet
Long-necked sink in front of me
Mother between us
I wasn’t allowed to hang on the sink
It would break, she said
The knife comes out
With all its bristles
And its rubber-gripped handle
Try to curl up
Or move your head away if your please
it won’t help
In she goes to cut
Feel it rip, tear at your curls
No blood pours out
but it hurts all the same
You’ll scream
You always do
So loud she shouts at you
to quiet down
or the neighbors will hear
But you don’t
you want to
but it hurts
it burns
Tears wet your cheeks
is it blood?
Kept captive
until the torture is through
clumps of curls stuck in the blade
Sensitive
they throw it at you
Over-reactive
she scolds, knife still in hand
shame that cuts you
Now you know
Even with a sensitive target
Cruelty is still cruel
and pain is still pain
And you try to throw away that knife
stained with your tears and hair
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Hold Tight
Walking down the street
I hold your hand
Skin warm against mine
Sun between our palms
Their eyes are on us
I hold your hand
Why should we let go?
Our grip tightens
Stares weigh heavily
I hold your hand
Fast against the fear
Will they approach us?
Frantic, I falter
Where is your hand?
I can’t lose us
In all their attempts
But I am not always strong
Their eyes are on us
And you take my hand
You hold me
And in their vitriol
their sick, twisted souls
can’t see us
But our eyes meet
Our hands hold tight
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