painting by Alimobin Memon
miriam sat curled
knees up head down
eyes shut tight against
the jeers hey snow white if you
were my daughter i’d spit right in your
face
miriam slept
she dreamed the cushite
woman was finally set free she
dreamed that moses prayed
desperately for her healing she
dreamed god’s face had been gazing
at her all along when she
awoke she was told to return to the
camp before they set out she named it
hazerot which means
yes i am a prophet
too
(Numbers 12)
look at me gaze
through the
cracks know you are
safe see you are
loved now reach
through and touch
the fullness
of my
peace
(Numbers 6:24-26)
photo by Chris Briscoe
before i
gave birth to
you i sacrificed
every first born in
the land of egypt I said
to pharaoh let my
first born go and
worship me in the wilderness then i
hardened him down to the
marrow so here we are in the
wilderness now i have you to
myself yes you
are my first born and
you are mine
all mine
(Numbers 3:13, Exodus 4:22-23)
you must not oppress the
stranger for the
land belongs to me and you are
all but strangers resident
upon it when you
oppress the stranger
you oppress
yourselves
(Leviticus 25:23)
and aaron replied to god
no i won’t turn
away the blind or the
scarred the fractured the
shattered the severed the
beaten or vanquished all
will be welcome to eat of
the sacred meal for there is
nothing so whole as a broken
heart none more open than the
freshly wounded
i wonder if
you
could
even
pass
that
test
(Leviticus 21:16-23)
The Deopokhari festival in Nepal is held to appease what locals believe is a demon that resides in a pond. Every year, goats and other animals are sacrificed to the pond demon so that no human lives will be lost to drowning. (Photo: Niranjan Shrestha / AP)
azazel danced down the edge of
the rocky slope when the
animal finally appeared in
the distance looking up he saw empty confessions
dissolving like beads of water on a
hot desert floor marveling at the desperate
neverending thirst for expiation how wonderful to
let a poor beast die for your sins how delectably
deliciously marvelous he reached the
bottom of the dry riverbed skipping gleefully in
anticipation he ran to greet the offering so
ravenous he didn’t bother to glance
behind at the dessicated goat
carcasses lying in heaps on the
floor of the
valley
(Leviticus 16:6-10)
if your affliction has gone deeper than
the surface of your skin if it has entered into
your bloodstream if it has broken through the
floodgates guarding the shadows of
your innermost self infecting your
being with the rawest truth of your life
and death you must venture beyond the limits
of your encampment to the outskirts of the
wilderness
examine yourself thoroughly note every mark
every blemish every dead patch of skin every
microscopic pathogen that feeds
off your dissolution
when this checkup is complete you
will be ready to return to the
land of the
living
(Leviticus 13:1-23)
In honor of Yom Hashoah, I offer this wonderful short documentary on the life of Raphael Lemkin, one of the greatest moral heroes of the 20th century.
I can think of no greater tribute to the memory of the six million – and all victims of genocide – than the legacy of this remarkable man.
his son’s bodies still smoldering next to the altar
they came and said to aaron
this is what happens when you play with strange fire
this is what happens when you’re too cautious
this is what happens when you don’t read the instructions
this is what happens when you’re too scared to improvise
this is what happens when you look into the light
this is what happens when you walk on the dark side
this is what happens when you attempt to escape
this is what happens when you remain in the ghetto
this is what happens when you believe the kindness of strangers
this is what happens when you fear the other
this is what happens when you resist
this is what happens when you go like sheep
to the slaughter
(Leviticus 10:1-3)
A poem for Pesach: “Imagine the Angels of Bread” by Martin Espada. Read it at seder this year!
This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year that darkskinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.This is the year that those
who swim the border’s undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts
the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth; this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorum,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.
Yedid Nefesh 