Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
Hineini
i am neither the seed
nor the fruit –
You water
me in the in
between;
between love and
the weeds
where i hide,
(supine and
reckless)
i forgot my name
when i fell from grace –
when i choked on fire,
and scorched
the scabrous earth;
until under the ash a
new name formed
spelled in hair
and bone:
Hineini. –
i am here, Elohai,
G-d of my ancestors
but my eyes transpose
the landscape;
and i am lost –
the rutted road
reads empty as
i search the near distance
astounded by ghosts,
and my own limpid hands;
we are here and not here
my mother, my father,
their daughter;
we must be in Gehinnom
awaiting our trials –
if so, dismiss our missteps
and restore us
not as before
but in numinous form
for the world to come –
allow me safe passage
to follow them home;
but if i cannot pass
extend me this moment
in precious purgatory
to lay eyes once again upon
all that was lost –
do not lift me from this place
to lay me down alone to goodbye,
and goodbye and goodbye....
seal me instead in a beautiful lie
where i can't see the end,
where i rise from the weeds
and there are no ghosts
and there are no ashes
and i remember my name
the one they gave me
(the one You took with them) –
and i will wait – and i will wait
for them to find me,
and ask where i've been hiding
and how long it has been
and how i fell so far behind –
and i will answer only that i am here,
waiting, Hineini.
Lover Found/Lost (Renée)
I remember your
long white hair draping
my shoulders as each
held the other’s form
our breath joined
how we tangoed
with time as we wove
the duple meter of
memory underfoot
hot in the shivering air
the playground we
raised in our reverie
with ecstatic exploration
with howling mirth
ephemeral in its end
the rising wave
of your approach and
fading pitch of your
receding reach
a doppler dimming
the abundance in
your eyes and the bite
of my disappearance
when they closed to me
after I had danced in them
and still I cannot parse truth
from illusion where our
shadows cast promise
before you swallowed the light