Trust
In a temperate zone
it is a cycle of promises—
spring will appear and wipe
away reminders of winter—
the pile of snow that resists melting,
icicles hanging off the roof edge
and bushes bent from the weight of winter
Spring is not happenstance
nor a fortunate phenomenon
or based on mathematical probability
nor the rermedy for Demeter’s
design for winter—instead
spring is woven from
the thread of creation
Count
Each day I count my tomatoes,
check to see a change from green
When I walk up and down hills
my watch counts my steps, my pulse
rate, distance in miles, time—
It keeps a record of my longest walk,
my speed—even calories used
If I count those times,
I let myself down—an errant word,
hyperbole, a reconstructed story
with missing parts, and the times I
looked away, invisible to myself—
too busy to count the hollow
places in need of repair
Hear
“I am my prayer.”
Va’ani Tefilati
my grandfather
faced the open window
and looked beyond
his street, past the boys
playing stickball,
past the girls jumping rope
miming each action
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Turn around,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Touch the ground
past the sounds of women
playing mahjong,
calling out their tiles
Dragons, Flowers, Seasons,
the Four Winds
in a staccato rendition
Past the Snow Cone man
selling flavored shaved ice
My grandfather David davens
and ancient prayers
echo across time
I listen—
hear my lineage
and pray
Be
A tear in a piece of cloth,
a seam undone
a loose thread pulled
until a hem is loosened
A friend who drifts away
with words unsaid
Who will sew the places
torn by overuse
or will time be allowed
to cover up the words
and seams remain split
Know
One thing I ask of the LORD,
it is this that I seek—
that I dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to behold the LORD’s sweetness
and to gaze on His palace.
Psalm 27:4 The Book of Psalms.
Robert Alter
I wander between the words
parsing out meanings,
finding a place to rest
If I ask this, what is asked of me
It is not the trappings—
my books stacked in bookcases
and in piles around my chair
It is not my art supplies—tubes of paints,
a few sable brushes, half finished
sketchbooks waiting for another line
It is not the words copied from books
Quotations and aphorisms
Snippets from newspapers
nor is it my own writings
I have little to offer
My tomato plant —a small harvest
LORD feels too heavy, I shall use
one of your other names—Ha Shem
I have no first fruits, nothing
except myself—flaws, doubts
and at times turning my back
and walking the other way
Yet, I know I hear the words
and turn—I am here
warts and all asking
to dwell
in that same house
Search
The real road of discovery consists
not in seeing new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.
—Marcel Proust
A dark sky blots out trees
erases clean contours
while rain waits to wash away
chalk drawings left by children
It pushes cyclists to switch gears
in an attempt to move beyond
the sounds of thunder
A woman pushing a stroller
looks at the sky and begins to run
I am outside waiting for the rain
I wait for the drops to wash over me
Rain nurtures my roses
and feeds small saplings
I, too, seek to grow
Act
Don’t turn your face away.
Once you’ve seen, you can no longer act like you don’t know.
Open your eyes to the truth. It’s all around you.
Don’t deny what the eyes to your soul have revealed to you.
Vashti Quiroz-Vega
bundled in blankets
sleeping on a mattress
of corrugated cardboard
wearing heavy clothes
even when the television prophet
predicts hot steamy weather
and exhorts listeners to drink
water, stay cool
in the morning the blanket
folded into a square
packed
into a grocery cart
and pushed down the street
to a square of concrete
a sun the size of a quarter
illuminates a handheld sign
hungry in black letters
homeless in block print
tonight
the blankets
stay in the cart
is it time
to act
Prepare
I descend
beneath my outer sheath—
crawl into crevices, into niches
hidden under sinews and roots,
and unearth spots overgrown with weeds
I need to gather them, cut away the knots,
bring them out into the open,
cut away the tendrils,
expose them to light
