Songs from the Diaspora — Weekly Poetry Blog: This week, “Pinchas”
Pinchas
Those who would be numbered
stood
at the entrance; feet burning in the empty
imprint of a generation left in Zin, save one,
witnessing
a spear, a crown passed, a prophets lips sewn-
the disruption of flesh
all asunder
rent anew
cleansed in quick bright blood
A peoples fate
wrought on two
my readers eye, seeing and seeing again
that sharp union/ in exchange for peace
counted and counted once more
into fierce union.
Hello readers! Welcome to my new poetry blog “Songs from the Diaspora” where I’ll be writing a weekly poetry blog post inspired by the weekly Torah portion, life in the Diaspora, and and the way those things interact. As an introduction to the collection of poems I’ll also be posting the poem with which I started this project-
Songs from The Diaspora
The land is not
beneath our feet.
Rather, in the vowels
of our veins —
the rocking tempo of
prayers unlearned
words, dusted by decades, said quietly,
alone in shul.
Sticky stiff lips twist, dust-coated.
Thirsty, a hunger pang rumbling past for
the language of my own prayers;
awkward on my tongue.
Ages fracture
and
reader and written, pick their seams.
I grow voracious,
A mouth full of thread.
