How Could I Be?

Week Two as Poet in Residence at Temple Beth El, Northbrook, Illinois.

This week's lesson plan was scrapped and changed, just before class, when I remembered that today is the 76th anniversary of Kristalnacht. We talked about poetry and music and prayer - how they're connected; how they crystallize and distill important ideas and feelings and images into their essence; how they create and help shape holy moments.

The discussion was lively and loud; they're seventh graders. Then we read Anna Sotto's stunningly brilliant poem, A6893. Its power is in its simplicity and spareness. After talking about the poem, its meaning, its intent, its feeling and voice, I asked the class to write their own, with the prompts "What, if removed, would not make you cry;" and "What, if taken away, would make you weep?"

They wrote, and they wrote, and they wrote. Fourteen seventh graders put pen to paper and peered inside, to answer the call - and create a holy moment for themselves. They were brilliant and funny and deep and not. I cannot wait to compile all of their writing, as we continue to write The Book of Micah: Justice, Mercy and God. Me, being who I am, accepted the obligation of the assignment as well. While I cannot (yet) share their beautiful poems, here is mine, with a debt of gratitude to Ms. Sotto, and her words of beauty and loss.



I have
a lot of
Stuff.
Some of it -
too much of It -
Spills and tangles
and topples
in its wondrous
Abundance.
But Oh!
It is grand
Stuff.
It sparkles
and rattles and comforts and warms
And when I spy it,
When I feel it
Or find it;
When I can touch it
or fondle it;
When I feel it,
As it runs through my fingers
Or wraps around my heart,
I think
In a sudden burst:
I am happy.
I think.
Yes.
That's it; I think:
I am happy.

And if, by chance
or design
or weirdly odd happenstance,
All that Stuff went away -
Lost,
Misplaced,
Removed,
I would be
Ok.
I think.
Mostly,
I think.
I would miss it,
That stuff of mine,
Mostly.
But I would get
More.
More Stuff -
More sparkly,
rattly,
comfortable
and comforting
and glorious
Stuff.

But my heart;
my soul;
my stories;
my name.

How could I be -
Who would I be -
If they were stolen
Erased,
To be replaced only by
a Number?

Night of Fire and Glass

Seventy-five years ago, the Nazis marched through the streets of Germany and Austria, attacking Jews, smashing windows of Jewish-owned stores, destroying synagogues, ransacking homes and hospitals, burning books and Torahs.  For two days, Jews were terrorized, beaten and arrested and sent to concentration camps while the government looked on.  When it was over, 91 people had been murdered, 30,000 had been arrested and sent to camps, more than 1000 synagogues had been burned and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses had been destroyed.  After two days of rioting, the Jewish community was fined $1 billion reichsmarks.

How can we possibly speak of such unspeakable horrors, of such hatred and violence and inhumanity, that happened so long ago?  How can we possibly find the words?

How can we not?

We can, because we must.  We find the words, we tell the story, and we remember.

We do, because this must never happen again, to anyone, to any people, in any land.  We find the words, and so we say: amen


Words for Kristalnacht

09-10 November 1938

Stars littered the ground

Crystal fire

Shards of ice

Glass

The smoke of a thousand thousand years

Ascended

Coiling upwards, twisted

With the memory of a People

Chosen once in light

Chosen again

In darkness

In ashes and in blood

Pounding rhythms shout out

Felt through their nsoles 

Driving forward, driving onward

Faster and faster and faster, and pulled forward

Pulled ever onward

In a rush, at a run, rippling in shadow

It invades your blood,

That rhythm,

That pulse,

That pull and push

That wraps ‘round your heart

In pounding and pulsing rhythms

That cradle your source

Your soul

The darkness swallows the cries

Of a thousand thousand lights

A thousand thousand years

A thousand thousand sighs

Of love

Of hope

Of God

Leaving only broken glass

And crystal fire

And glistening stars to lead us

Home.

Night of Fire and Glass

Words for Kristalnacht

09-10 November 1938

Stars littered the ground

Crystal fire

Shards of ice

Glass

The smoke of a thousand thousand years

Ascended

Coiling upwards, twisted

With the memory of a People

Chosen once in light

Chosen again

In darkness

In ashes and in blood

Pounding rhythms shout out

Felt through soles 

Driving forward, driving onward

Faster and faster and faster, and pulled forward

Pulled ever onward

In a rush, at a run, rippling in shadow

It invades your blood,

That rhythm,

That pulse,

That pull and push

That wraps ‘round your heart

In pounding and pulsing rhythms

That cradle your source

Your soul

The darkness swallows the cries

Of a thousand thousand lights

A thousand thousand years

A thousand thousand sighs

Of love

Of hope

Of God

Leaving only broken glass

And crystal fire

And glistening stars to lead us

Home.