Today I'm posting a poem I wrote some years back and which is published in my anthology From My Heart to Yours.
Hanukkah
The menorah is lost
The elders are dead
Wooden synagogue burned
Torah scrolls burned
Village burned
Sanctuary desolate
The light of the covenant
Lost to our house.
It is solstice
The time of rekindling.
Fire hidden in dry cistern
Forgotten for generations
Liquid fire
Hidden in Jewish heart
Blazes forth anew.
Ancient fire
Lost and reborn
Light of all the peoples
Glints on brass lampstand
Sparkles in the window
Shines on faces of ecstatic Sufis
Streams into hearts awake with love
For Krishna, Rama, Kali, Christ, Mohammed,
Illumining, illumining.
Baruch atah adonai elohenu!
Rachel, Perel, Daniel,
On this, the birthday of your first born child
The light of Hanukkah,
Light of the menorah
Light of Torah
Returns to your
house.
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