Return: a poem for the ending of Elul

Return.
Again.
I have returned again
to this place of fullness,
this place of everythingness;
and I feel empty.
Hollow.
Again.

I fling my sins,
all bright copper
and colored feathers,
out into the heavens -
Which is separate from the earth,
Which is separate from the waters,
and they fly like birds,
and dance and dazzle.

They are beautiful,
these sins of mine,
as they catch the light.
I am caught in their beauty,
racing after them.
They drift and fall
like so many crooked arrows,
and I collect them,
to turn them back to me
before moving on
to the next gate.

The Color of Sin

The color of sin is white;
this is sacrilege, I know.

Still, white is an everythingness,
a pervasive mess.

It is a blanket of snow,
or the eternity of death.

It stretches, like heat,
and it contracts and cracks

like ice.
Like sin.

Red hyssop will stain it
until it is not,

until the white -
and the sin - are not,
and I am clean.

Sin is tricky like that.

The Holiness of Broken Things: a poem for parashat Ki Tisa

I carry my brokenness with me
It is holy--
as holy as my breath,
my heart,
my wholeness.

It is a part of me, these
scattered pieces
of shattered longing
and battered dreams.
My sins.
All of them.
I carry them--
all of them;
All these broken things
that bend me and bow me,
together with my wholeness,
these holy things.
Idols to my shame,
wrapped in gold and
adorned in abandon.
I fed the fires of that sacred forge
with fear and guilt,
and the altars ran slick with salted tears.
I offered--
offer--
the broken pieces as
my sin offering,
for they are holy,
and I carry them with me,
together with my wholeness.

I carry my brokenness with me--
all my sins
and shame
and salted tears,
and I place them
together with my wholeness
on the sacred altars
holy, holy, holy.
They twine together in red and gold flames,
Broken
and Whole
offered together
and returned to me ,
Whole
and Broken--
Holy still,
carried together
until I reach the next altar.

Stale Bread and Old Sins

The ducks grow fat on my sins.
The ravens, too.
I saw a flock of them--
A murderous gaggle,
as they swooped down in tight formation,
fat black missiles,
just after we stood on the bridge over the creek
emptying our pockets and plastic bags
overflowing with
stale bread and old sins.

Of course, not all the bread was stale
nor all the sins old.
I'm sure I collected a few
as I drove to our afternoon gathering
at the creek.
And, possibly,
if I'm being quite honest
(and now, I'm guessing, would be the time for honesty)
I believe there is the possibility
that I racked up several more
while wandering the wooded path
that led to the creek.

While wandering back and forth along the wooded path.
Several times--

-- assuming sarcasm is a sin.

But for a moment,
as my bread arced through leafy boughs
and landed in clear and cluttered water
that moved in a stately rhythm
toward some other stream
that leads to some other lake
that leads to oceans and streams and rivers and lakes
from here to the ancient shores of Phoenicia
to rain-laden clouds, pregnant and billowing.--

-- unless imagination is a sin.

But for a moment.
in that delicate and wobbly arc
of bread and sin combined,
there is a moment of
Lightness.
Of Emptiness
that stretches from my fingertips
to stale bread
and old sins
to that small point of infinite
that pinprick of forever,
carried away on sweetly rushing water
that fills me with light.
And breath.
And God.