Morning Call to Prayer

I carry my dreams with me
Into the pale and quiet of morning
I carry the sound of coffee
And the smell of sleep-warmed sheets,
Tumbled, then
smoothed.
I carry
Birdsong and traffic noise
And distraction
Into the pale and clamoring morning.
I carry bright dreams and sharp-edged rush,
And I lay them down-
All down-
In that breath,
That narrow space
That separates me from
You,
That holds the voice of holiness
And calls me to prayer.

Love and Loose Threads

This is the second of The Bar Mitzvah Writings-- the poems I wrote to introduce each section of the Shabbat morning service, to honor my son for his Bar Mitzvah.  


For me, this section, the Sh'ma and its blessings, is all about sound, the calling out and the coming together, declaring and rejoicing: a rich jumble of noise that goes up and out, higher and sweeter and made more pure with every voice that is added.  I heard someone ask once, during Torah study, why do we come together as a community to pray? Is there a difference in that than in praying on one's own.  The only answer that made sense to me was all about sound and harmony: when I sing with others, there is a richness and a depth that is impossible when I sing by myself.  There can be beauty, but there is no harmony.  I sing-- I pray-- with others, to hear all the notes that can make a joyous noise.


This is the song I hear, all the notes rising and falling, a transcendent arc bordered by love and loose threads...

We call to one another

Into the quiet

Into the burgeoning clamor of the day

We call

To one another

To come together

Prayerfully.

We listen

     We hear

          We declare

That there is Oneness in God

And majesty

And glory

When we call

When we hear

When we love.

And love we must 

Because we are bound--

To God

To one another

By loose threads and ancient words

By truth

And faith

And freedom

By love.

Bound by love for

Beloved of

In an endless spiral,

A double helix

That ends (begins) on the shores of a distant Sea