The Lladro Bar Mitzvah Boy (Poem)

For years I had a Lladro Bar Mitzvah Boy porcelain,

Elongated, in gorgeous muted blue and cream.

With each move I would wrap it carefully in newspaper and cloth

And place it gently in its own separate box.

Aside from its beauty that soothed my heart,

It represented something might have been,

Were I born to an earlier generation and a boy.

Perhaps I would have worn a somber threadbare suit and yarmulke,

A thin yeshiva bochur, always with my nose in a book.

After one difficult transition I opened the box

To find that it had finally cracked into several pieces,

Too delicate to bear so many travels.

Sometimes on a rainy winter’s day, I remember my Lladro

And can almost hear the murmured thrum within the beit midrash

As I study with others in the fading December light.