~ High Holiday Poems
Rosh Hashanah Opens To The Page
Rosh Hashanah opens to the page
On which is writ, for good or ill, our fate.
Still wrestling with angels, we engage,
Harrowing our hearts, our destined state.
However, “we” encompasses us all,
As though we were but droplets in a wave
Suspended on its journey to the shore,
Hard put to any single droplet save.
And so we pray not only for ourselves,
Nor only for our family, friends, or tribe:
All must be our congregation, else,
Having thus lost hope, we won’t survive.
~Nicholas Gordon
How Divine is Forgiving?
It’s a nice concept
but what’s under the sculptured draperies?
We forgive when we don’t really care
because what was done to us brought unexpected
harvest, as I always try to explain
to the peach trees as I prune them hard,
to the cats when I shove pills against
the Gothic vaults of their mouths
We forgive those who betrayed us
years later because memory has rotted
through like something left out in the weather
battered clean then littered dirty
in the rain, chewed by mice and beetles,
frozen and baked and stripped by the wind
til it is unrecognizable, corpse
or broken machine, something long useless.
We forgive those whom their own machinations
have sufficiently tangled, enshrouded,
the fly who bit us to draw blood and who
hangs now a gutted trophy in a spider’s
airy larder; more exactly, the friend
whose habit of lying has immobilized him
at last like a dog trapped in a cocoon
of fishing line and barbed hooks.
We forgive those we firmly love
because anger hurts, a coal that burns
and smolders still scorching the tissues
inside, blistering wherever it touches
so that we bury the hot clinkers in a mound
of caring, suffocate the sparks with promises,
drown them in tears, reconciling.
We forgive mostly not from strength
but through imperfections, for memory
wears transparent as a glass with the pattern
washed off, till we stare past what injured us,
We forgive because we too have done
the same to others easy as a mudslide;
or because anger is a fire that must be fed
and we are too tired to rise and haul a log.
Yom Kippur Remains a Day of Morning
Yom Kippur remains a day of morning
On which another year of joy depends.
Most make the most of life by choosing love,
Knowing more than they have knowledge of,
Immersed in means while bound for better ends.
Penitence must work its will by evening,
Passionate enough to make amends,
Until the last horn blows, the loved ones leaving,
Resolved to grace whichever way life wends.
~Nicholas Gordon
You Cannot Think the Book of Life Will Close
You cannot think the book of life will close.
Opportunity must seem a right.
Most days contain a trace of paradise,
Kindling the hope that God is nice
Instead of just or loving or pure light.
Prepare for what is not what you propose:
Perhaps you think your prayers will suffice,
Unburdening your heart with hunger slight.
Repentance takes much more than you suppose.
~Nicholas Gordon
You Wonder Whether Fate is Accidental
You wonder whether fate is accidental,
Or whether this one day a harrowed heart
Might make some difference to a willing God,
Knowing well that faith is more than mental.
In fact, you know quite well that you don’t know
Precisely why you’re here, or why today,
Perhaps most out of loyalty, you pray,
Unwilling to let long-loved labors go,
Reciting with true grace the ancient part.
~Nicholas Gordon
