If Lost, Please Return

49 toward the Omer

2023-05-25T19:08:00.004-04:00

malkhut shebmalkhut

days,

like whales,

rise up from,

fall back below, the

surface of eternity, and I,

somehow, am inside of another one

turning another notch on the row counter

hanging around my neck on burgundy embroidery floss

is this tiny click a pleasing sound to You?

what a place from which to write a new song

maybe it would be easier to be back on the boat

but the last time I tried that out, the storms came a’knocking

—

I ask my grandmother Miriam about the wilderness, and she says no, it

never felt like we were retracing our steps, each loop was always somehow forward.

I go to therapy, find that I told her I was away this week—

I’ve been here before, haven’t I?—and go to WEBS, and the store next door,

get a thread clipper and darning needle to finish sewing the braided table runner rag rug

that’s been waiting for months inside of a wedding dress garment bag for me and these tools

to find our way back after last being seen in the snowy Utah desert, or in the hands

of airport security, or in front of a computer screen completing note after overdue note measuring other people’s progress.

My wife and I dance at a reception in Baltimore, sing once again Here I am, baby, signed, sealed, delivered,

and an egg in a follicle that will rupture in a quarter to a third of a year starts to mature,

and dear Ariel says to me, The lilacs are starting to bloom here—that, to me, feels like news every single time.

—

I ask the Canyonlands, the trees of Mt. Tamalpais, what gifts I can give them, learn that the gift would be to receive.

—

Reveal my heart to me, I said in the pouring rain that night. I cannot do that, You say. I can only hold you

while you reveal it to yourself. Then hold me, I say. Hold me tight with the tightness of a tallis knot gone through the dryer.

Those knots are made from themselves and hold themselves, You say. What does this make of You? of my heart? I say, hear the Psalmist’s words,

unwound and reentwined: Memalei kol almin, sovev kol almin—“For You fill all worlds and surround all worlds (and without You there is no world at all)”—

Are we a tame knot or a wild one? I ask. What a knotty question, you say. This is more familiar ground, I say, but I miss you.

Miss me in one dimension, God says, and be with me in another. I raise my eyes, see a flight attendant. She offers snack mix but carts no pretzels.

—

And I will write twenty-nine lines and I will write all twenty more just to be the woman who wrote forty-nine lines to show up at Your door dada-da— dada-da—

—

It was possible, I know, to have a poem that said thirty-one thirty-one times, and that would have been sufficient. It was also sufficient, God says, that you lived another day,

and we knew you weren’t going to stop there. I ogle the looms, touch the woven samples, close my eyes in bed to see moving images of rings, nails, dowels, warp, wood.

—

A watched pot doesn’t boil, but it does eventually evaporate, and so, too, overpowering desire can lessen possibility. Unable to swim toward or swim away, I tread water til my feet touch bottom

and walk the labyrinth. Hedges flower. Every once in a while there is an opening, and I ask another passerby, Is that the way through? They say, your client just walked into the building.

I come back in two hours, paperwork done, final emails sent. The passerby has moved on, but I’m all right. The light comes through the office window, through the oxalis triangularis, touches my right ankle.

The dollhouse is empty, aside from the pipe cleaner ladder that makes it more safe, and there is no need to complete the Rubix Cube before leaving, which is good, because up until now, I cannot.

I will remember to file away the drawing the kid in the hallway gave to me, made with the paper and pencils and solid base I’d offered them while they were waiting for their sibling, under “Personal.”

Back when I thought I would write about the thirty-eighth day before now, I noted, “Some things I could have predicted, such as the blandness of this airport pizza.” But no one expects—no need to finish that.

In one more line, I can borrow from poems that I have already written. They can take their rightful place. Or is it that these words will take their rightful places around them? White fire! Black fire! Turn around!

—

I set my phone timer for fifteen minutes, sit for fourteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds, check to make sure it’s working—it goes off in my hand. The bachelor buttons wilt in the sun, started too late, transplanted too early.

It is night, it is morning: a forty-first day. Ninety-seven point two degrees. I sit again, the full fifteen. I bleed disuse. I water the celosia, the peas, the basil, my right foot. My uterus builds up a new silver lining.

—

У тёти Моти четыре сына, четыре сына!, у тёти Моти, они сидели, они не ели, но только пели лишь один куплет. Правая рука! Левая рука! Правое плечо! Левое плечо! Правая нога! Левая нога! Го-ло-во! У тёти Моти четыре сына, четыре сына! у—

—

The week of presence is upon us, and there is no patience for writing. All pens are thrown to the ground. All spirals notebooks flutter, torn, into the wind. There are bikes to ride! People to love! Bills to pay! Teeth to clench! Facebook Marketplaces

to scour for Brothers and Bernettes! COQ-10s and Vitamin Ds to send wives looking for! Wordles to get right! Zillows to browse and find more almost somethings on! Watch it, God says. You’re setting up some sort of dichotomy here. You’re right, I say.

You still lived those days, God says. I know, I say. They are as precious as the stars, God says. I guess stars burn out too, I say. Oh, yes, God says. And then do they also paint? I ask. Do they ever, God says.

Remember last Sunday? Day forty-five, compassion within presence? You played Scrabble with your landlord on your front porch after she correctly identified a gas leak and learned that you weren’t about to have your house sold from under you. That, I say, was definitely worth it.

Yeah, I say. Exeunt Molly, God. Oh, God, how grateful I am to be learning how to wait, to be learning how not to. We’re already immortal, if we look at the right cross-section, aren’t we? How long have you waited for us to figure this out?

With the show over, the answers don’t arrive, at least not how they have been. I look up, see the bird on the pillow on the green couch, see the light is dimming, though sunset is not for an hour and twenty minutes. Asparagus quiche is a line,

an email, a car ride, a few blessings, a held hand away. “Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vines, I’ll taste Your strawberries, I’ll drink Your sweet wine. A million tomorrows shall all pass away, ere I forget”—ere You forget—ere we forget—“all the joy”—

14 toward the Omer

2023-05-03T12:04:00.003-04:00

malkhut shebgevurah

Ah, and I thought that malkhut shebgevurah would be the day I’d catch up!

Catch up with what or whom? God says. My poems? Myself? You? I say.

I don’t care what you do, God says, as long as you do it.

That’s not quite right, I say. Do you not trust my voice? God says.

Sure, I say, but I’m not sure that I’ve turned it around correctly yet.

Well, then, God says, try again. Okay, I say. Do it, as long as

you care what you do. Don’t I? I say. Yes, God says. I do.

13 toward the Omer

2023-05-03T11:51:00.002-04:00

yesod shebgevurah

We go straight to bed, as straight to bed as that can be.

12 toward the Omer

2023-05-03T11:26:00.004-04:00

hod shebgevurah

Humbled, I seek any start, recall the words on the Zen Center

kitchen wall: “If you do not have the mind of the way,

then all this hard work is meaningless and not beneficial. - Dōgen Zenji”

11 toward the Omer

2023-04-30T23:45:00.006-04:00

netzach shebgevurah

The Redwoods—the always living Sequoia—the only names I know
name my settler self too, bring me only ever as close

as these plank paths do—(hush, child—we’ll come to you)

10 toward the Omer

2023-04-30T22:48:00.003-04:00

tiferet shebgevurah

I hold memories in my hands like fallen magnolia petals

9 toward the Omer

2023-04-20T18:15:00.001-04:00

gevurah shebgevurah

in continued memory of Sylvia Greenfield Moses, zichrona livracha

I didn’t expect legs would fall asleep in heaven,

or that I would have to catch myself leaving

and encourage myself to return, but the rest is

just about how I’d imagined the place to be—

sitting silent here together, facing away, trusting, being trusted.

I watch the next breath of my life begin

with no intention of making it so, watch it

until it goes. I stand when it’s time to,

stumble as the blood rushes along its merry way.

Back upstairs, I blessedly end up in front of

no statues, bow, put toes, oops, on the fingers

of the man behind me, who, when we rise

and turn again, becomes the man on my left

who gives me the book I need already opened

to the right page. Today, we remember our ancestors.

Today, the five aspects of human existence are empty,

nothing is born, nothing dies. Today, I dust mop

the main hallway—gone, gone over—and get released—

8 toward the Omer

2023-04-20T08:57:00.003-04:00

chesed shebgevurah

San Francisco. The trees are two weeks ahead

of ours, though they are also not—time’s

just different here. In the Zen Center kitchen

dear Kei introduces us to Heiko who asks

Do you practice? I later think of responding

I am practicing practicing, wonder if the two

are the same. Sure, God says, depending on

the dimensions. Oh hi, I say, my thoughts

of slope and acceleration scattering to the winds

who collect them up, hand them back over,

ever so generously tell me to start again.

7 toward the Omer

2023-04-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

malkhut shebchesed

I don’t make it to the water

this year. Instead I’m here with you

and then you. We put words into

the surface of the depths between us,

see what rises up from the ruffles.

6 toward the Omer

2023-04-20T08:28:00.001-04:00

yesod shebchesed

While we are decidedly not looking,

the man we had talked about

over dinner last night raises his

hands under his tallis, blesses us.

5 toward the Omer

2023-04-11T19:30:00.001-04:00

hod shebchesed

I will have to adopt

any child born from me

if I wish my wife

to be able to also

(the petition of a married

person must be made jointly)

and, of course, vice versa

I laugh at the absurdity

but the rest of it

does make terrifying sense to

the part of my mind that’s

been shaped by, has even

come to rely on, paper

as here, with the lawyer,

a future comes clear: fishing

documents out of the car

for some other state’s cop

to show that our child

is mine and is hers

the spectre of such stops

arrived at this door where

not even uterine blood can

deter those bent on entering

oh, God, what a world,

in which we are lucky

the house on Blackberry Lane

gets twenty-four offers, sells for

more than one hundred thousand

over the half million ask

my dears share the news

that they’ve been reading (that

they’ve been living) so at

least the razor shards of fear

can be held, can be

cradled, in ever more hearts

a loved one starts collecting

menstrual cloths and cast-off rags

to make her priestly robes

we walk about our lives.

who will have a chair

when the music turns off

and who do we think

will start it up again?

4 toward the Omer

2023-04-10T20:00:00.001-04:00

netzach shebchesed

Six minutes left before

the sun sets on

us and those daffodils

by the basement window

of the neighboring office,

the morning’s must, risen

from the carpeted floor,

eight more unfinished notes,

breath, noise machine, birdsong

3 toward the Omer

2023-04-09T22:09:00.006-04:00

tiferet shebchesed

With thanks to

our landlords for

telling us over

food last fall

that it works

for one partner

to be clean,

the other neat,

I see the

entryway pile I’d

agreed to dismantle,

get started while

kombucha water boils.

She asks about

the yellow slip

that I’d assumed

was not mine.

It says “Seat

Check Dest. Amtrak

Date Keep In

Sight” and, flipped

to the other

side, in script,

“Carry-by post Baltimore

on 171. Please

take back to

Baltimore. C. Iyer”

True to style,

I choose to

reuse my luck

rather than recycle

2 toward the Omer

2023-04-09T22:09:00.002-04:00

gevurah shebchesed

Reading in

bed since

eight pm—

around midnight

downstairs the

landlords with

their friends

singing One

is HaShem—

A guest

with covid

behind a

door, still

a guest

1 toward the Omer

2023-04-09T22:08:00.004-04:00

chesed shebchesed

she

holds

other

hand

Pre-Pesach poem 5783 (2023)

2023-04-05T18:05:00.004-04:00

Leach field

The pipe that led

to the concrete bomb shelter

let the late winter air in,

arguably fallout, too,

though not the mice.

Seven decades later,

at the open house,

we watch our heads—

at least when we enter—

ask, Wine or potatoes?

Mold percolates up

through the finished floor

as Mother Nature

according to the inspector

slowly reclaims what is hers.

Outside, by the leach field,

I dream of wildflowers

for the ground

that can hold us,

can hold the most precious

and despised parts of us.

We walk away, back

to this home

where we believe

science is real

love is love

plastic is kasherable

Our ceramic dishes

will stay in the cabinet

absorbent as they are

who knows what

they would leak out

if allowed to speak

The lesson of clay—

that something so porous

can be so lasting

can break so

42-49 toward the Omer

2023-04-05T17:16:00.003-04:00

malkhut shebyesod

I do not know exactly what was going on, but I must have been—hopefully was—present. Too present to keep a record. Yes, that would be a great spin on the situation, even if it falls short of a true accounting.

chesed shebmalkhut

The wooden bench under the two trees across the little creek in the backyard held me until there was somewhere else I was moved to be and so moved myself. Upon what shall I train my eyes if not on those budding branches?

gevurah shebmalkhut

The next thing in front of my face, and the next thing, and the next thing. Dayton. Cleveland. Toronto. The mountain is clouded. The mountain is coming. The mountain is not yet. We are made pilgrims. We are made the pilgrimage. The mountain stands

tiferet shebmalkhut

between us here in Montreal, or inside me somewhere—the base is wide, and I cannot see beyond the sudden shame of my bare shoulders. I go inside, take space on the balcony. The kids sell popcorn in the back alley, ride by on rollerskates,

netzach shebmalkhut

push each other in strollers. We make it home, air conditioner on the fritz, and it’s time to go. Doctor, dentist, Shabbat, Shavuot, not that I’m looking backward or anything. Oh Orpheus, oh Idit—if only we could let what has been die in its time

hod shebmalkhut

and therefore live, and keep living ourselves. The plants did not wait for our return to start growing. I unpack the car, see some clients, prepare for marriage. Quiches go into the oven, come out of the oven. Compostable plates arrive. Light blue pants. Too many vests.

yesod shebmalkhut

I stumble over my untied shoes. Eurydice, city of S’dom—would you be okay if we didn’t look back? Looking is touching, God says. I didn’t think you’d show up with me this late in the game, I say. I was, God says. I am. I will be.

malkhut shebmalkhut

Well, then, I say, let’s get going. I’ll stay here, God says, and see you there. Can I look back? I say. Wherever you look, God says, is forward. Choose yours carefully. I will, I say. I tie my laces, straighten up, and walk, present at last, accounted for.

38-41 toward the Omer

2022-06-03T06:30:00.006-04:00

tiferet shebyesod-yesod shebyesod

38. I wake up early, and I would sleep more, but it’s already late, and there are vanishingly few miles to go. I hear the pulsing of the Coke factory from bed. I also hear, thank God, the birds.

39. I’ll have to learn the songs, who is connected to what. Seems, at least in this way, that the Front Range became more familiar than home. Though it is in naming the unfamiliar that the need for names comes.

40. Has your name changed? God asks. Aren’t you the one who tells me? I say. God is patient, which feels, for once, exceedingly patronizing. Aren’t I the one waiting? I say. What for? God says. I almost answer, then relent.

41. It’s tiring to catch up to oneself, especially when time zones are involved and when oneself needs to be created along the way. I try to speak through the Doppler compression. The vacuum-sealed bags break open, and the clothes, released, breathe.

37 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T21:44:00.001-04:00

gevurah shebyesod

The sun is setting, and it is time for me to move on, but not before this. The pasta boils slowly. I give away half of the giveaway rhubarb, drink tepid tea. Close my eyes. Open them.

25-36 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:22:00.000-04:00

netzach shebnetzach-chesed shebyesod

25. One plane leads to another, and I end up in Brigadoon, or something like it, two hours ahead of six and a half hours later.

26. I get my nails done with my grandmother, but we are back to back, so we don’t talk much. I keep running my thumbs over them.

27. Smoother than usual. Buffed down, enhanced. They won’t start chipping for a week and a half. She sloughed away the callous on the ball of my foot,

28. which was propped up to face her, the heel unseen. On Shabbat, I walk a loop, walk again the other way, swim some laps in an infinity pool.

29. The way back can be easy, and it can be hard, and it’s never quite back. There’s only a week and a half until it’s time to go home,

30. the other one, where I won’t arrive to leave a week and a half later. The week is full of humility and splendor and a lag that I notice, consider,

31. perpetuate. When I don’t cut through, nothing is finished, and nothing is started, and maybe I would rather have the little deaths, if I can find them, than this floating immortality.

32. Missed, the circle edge of dead skin from the old blister from my right shoe keeps me an imperfect house among imperfect houses, as though I needed the reminder. Maybe I did.

33. Exposed, I test myself daily, mask indoors, live outside, sleep separate, shower when nobody is around. A bear scratches itself against the wooden bench, paws at the tire swing before the snows come.

34. The trees are vulnerable, hands open to the sun. The burden is caught and is heavy. They will wait as they can for change. I am freed from space by a negative, return, wonder

35. if there are eggs still in nests and if the birds have what to do. First there are white mountains, then there are green mountains, then they’re white. When you act, you won’t always get

36. as far as you’d hoped, God says, or even thought necessary. But will it be enough? I say. Do you think you can incomplete the heavens and the earth? God says. I raise my eyes, see.

24 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:20:00.010-04:00

tiferet shebnetzach

How did the equilibrium line get set, where creating the space for unburdening requires overburdening first? The larger the fall, the bigger the lift.

23 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:20:00.004-04:00

gevurah shebnetzach

I catch up to myself in one way, leave the other part hanging. The train on the dress halfway bustled, I bustle about.

Where’s your entourage? God says. The little birds are too busy singing, I say, to hold my train. Ah, yes, God says, it’s

that time of year. And I do not want any poisoned apples, I say. No, God says, they don’t carry those at Lucky’s.

22 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:20:00.001-04:00

chesed shebnetzach

It was months ago that I told the Friends that I looked forward to coming back, but today, once more, is not

the day. We walk up Sanitas, all nine of us, climb back down, get lunch. She somehow doesn’t know after seven years

that I don’t like vinegar and sea salt potato chips, always thought I’d just been generous to give her the whole bag.

There’s some more time to figure such things out, and for now, my barbecue style is one dollar and a few cents

before the tip. I have a child on my leg, another in my arms, oh so briefly. And so we turn again.

21 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:19:00.005-04:00

malkhut shebtiferet

We say no to far away and find the yes to here. I make it up the hills without shifting gears.

Close to the rest of the herd, but somehow outside the fence, a cow stands and waits for change to come.

The prairie dogs watch from their mounds, except for those underground, those not looking, and the one dead on the road.

I bleed through, and my pad chafes, but the sun is setting, so we ride, find balance, do what’s gloriously possible.

20 toward the Omer

2022-05-23T10:19:00.002-04:00

yesod shebtiferet

Another day, another accidental bonk on the head. I return clothes, return home. Call me anything except late to dinner,

but I will still need to call myself on time. Hineini. Where is that? In this moment? In this moment?