In the Days of Awe

for Abbe, Sally, and Joseph

I Amidah

Hear my personal prayer, the words of my mouth and the meditation
of my heart that I may find a way back through love
In the hospital roompacked in blood-soaked cottonthe new mother lay
animal-exhaustedtechnicians whisked the child awayin the first
hours there was fear O teach me to withhold judgment

of the one who took my place who said yes when I said no
whose days opened to the child when my days foreclosed
she who conceived of joy where I imagined the crossbar
against my chestsubjugation of family lifethe double
harnessthe never ending tasksthe clamp and vise

II Shofar

The shofar blasts birthday of the world of our dominion
over nature in the Kingdom of the Lord our God Ruler
of the UniverseThen why am I weeping into this tissue?
What is this child to me who refused to stay and raise him?
What is the broken covenant, this yoke?

III Tashlikh

By a small stream as is customary
we cast into the water with its drift
of leaves our quarrels like stones our envies
and resentments O LordYou do not maintain anger
but delight in forgiveness

IV Aleinu

You take me down to the nursery to see
Joseph in his little cap of many colors
with hi jaundice and his brisk efficient keepers
Will you be kind? Cleanse my mind of wickedness
Teach me to attain a heart of wisdom

In the synagogue the families praise all fruitbearing trees
and cedarsall wild beasts and cattleI watch a woman
and her teenage daughter conferlean into each other
They hold the mahzor between themtheir mouths shape the beautiful
Hebrew I do not know how to read except in transliteration

V Teshuvah

Turn from evil and do goodthe Psalmist saysturning
Round the turnturn the keyclock the turnturn in time
time to turn words into footstepsto lead the young colt to the field
to turn from the old yearthe old selfYou are ready
to turn and be healedonly faceonly begin

VI Amidah

Inscribe him in the Book of Life for Your sakeliving God
She opened up the book of her body again and again
She would not stop trying though I mocked hera year
ended and a year beganI had no imagination for family life
inhabiting sadly that place for years

inhabiting sadly that place for yearswith mewho chose
to keep my faith with those who sleep in dustshe chose
against the quiet house and noiseless rooms she chose
to bear her mortal woman’ s hare and split her life in two
or three or fourshe said I know what you wantI want more

VII Avinu malkeinu

Avinu malkeinu inscribe us in the Book of Deliverance
Avinu malkeinu inscribe us in the Book of Merit
Avinu malkeinu inscribe us in the Book of Forgiveness
Sarah beseeched God for a child and brought forth Isaac
And Sally brought forth JosephAmen

A voice commands the lightning that cleaves stones
A voice shatters stately cedars
A voice twists the trees and strips the forest bare
The devout say In your love for your neighbor will you find God
They say Days are scrollsWrite only what you want remembered

VIII Kedushah

We believe that God abides in mysteryin a diaspora of dust
in the obsessivethe compulsivethe disorderedin the lonely
in the bossesin the unendurablein the technological
and pharmaceutical failuresin the very old
in the newbornin memoryin kindnessin acts of lovingkindness

We believe that God abides in the unfitin those unshielded
by luck or faith and by bad luck made abject by the unctuous
I believe in the uncomputerized and the demoralized
the belittled and benumbed gazing like dumb beasts
like my sister groping mid-seizure back to speech

IX Mourner’ s Kaddish

Bless my sister who could not endurebless her failure to thrive
and bless my parents in their magnificent witness
Sanctify this Day of RemembranceGrant them peace
from the clichéd language of condolence cardsBe merciful to those
who passed Your blessed days in a curtained room of shame

In the public placein the hall outfitted with a simple ark
the mourners standWhom shall I dread? we ask with our private
dreads on our civic facesWe are an assembly of stunned
children called to recite Yit-gadal ve-yit kadash shmei raba
There is always someone to mournLook around

X The Fast of Yom Kippur

Look aroundthe congregation atoneswe certify regret
we recall our transgressionsand those who transgressed against us
Where is my milk? Joseph cries and she feeds himThe Torah
teaches repentanceI remember my zayde, a shrunken man
at the front of the shul fastingBy the last Aleinu he could not stand

My father brought smelling saltsthe son who did no know
the prayers sat with his fatherHis life was one long prayer
in the hereness of God On the maternity floor food and flowers
Choose life! shouts baby Joseph tightly bound in a cotton blanket
I’ m afraid it’ s time to go says the kind nurse after visiting hours

XI Selihot

The days of women and men are as grass.
They flourish as flowers in the field.
The wind passes over them and is gone,
and no one can recognize where they grew.

XII Amidah

Inscribe for me a childless lifeO lift me
to the Book of Many Forms that I might find another way
to honor my father and mothertheir agony of bereavement
Let me understand the girl child I wasbeloved as Joseph in his coat
of many colors, favored by his fatherhated by his brothers

and by his brothers thrown into the pitThen to live among strangers
in Egypt far from familyBind me to these friends and to this child
that I may learn my true relation to the people of this story
Sanctify difference and refusalbless
the lesbiansthe child with two mothersAmen