N’ilah

On Rosh Hashanah it is written.

Inscribed in the tree of life that is 

Chopped and pulped and dried 

Into pages that cannot settle 

In the 4 pm wind.

Flipping like God’s breakfast

Shuddering at every disturbance 

Easy to anger, easy to love,

Hard to promise. 

We commit imperfection

But God says we’re forgiven 

If we throw things about it. 

Usually it’s bread, toasted

and crumbling from open fists.

Every time I rest my head 

On God’s shoulder, 

He shrugs me off, tells me to confront 

myself with tangible conversations

and complex apples. 

I swear ripples into reflection

But it’s hard to promise anything

{Except that none of this

Was wasted time} 

But a need to take up space

At the flux of the season, 

To feel weather carmelize 

On not-so-thick skin. 

God, I feel it all

And it sticks with me. 

I can rinse off sin, 

But regret requires elbow grease,

And maybe a friend. 

You entrust me in all white

Despite dirty dishes and ignorance

Of what goes on

Inside laundry machines. 

Years are cycles,

People are not. 

I collect leaflets from the tree

And create crimson collages 

Of familiar forests 

And anonymous lumberjacks. 

This is God’s image, 

We give and we take, 

Destroy and create, 

Drizzle our nature 

Over puckered lips and closing books.

On Yom Kippur it is sealed.