That time with you, that long ago time.

How much do I remember, how much did I dream?

The dough sticks to my hands,

Flour dusting the table, as I prepare challah.

The kitchen becomes warm and fragrant,

The aromas of saffron and honey welcoming you home.

When we leave for temple, we link our bare hands,

Disregarding the drifting snow and occasional disapproving stares.

Courteously, you open the heavy wooden door for me to enter

And then we part, you to the men’s side, me to the women’s.

Afterwards over the communal kiddush and hamotzi,

You catch my eye and smile.

I know you’re thinking of a sleepy morning,

Warmed against the early chill by samovar tea,

Bread with butter, and me in your arms.

The sun hesitates in the morning,

Granting the darker hours ascendancy

And paying obeisance to the moon.

The birds have packed away their frolicking trills,

Relinquishing the song field to the mournful cries

Of the winter geese.

The long rumble of the train becomes more a part of the natural world,

No longer rudely breaking into the gaudy landscape

Of baseball games, outdoor markets, and marathons.

I help wooly worms cross the trail,

Lest they be crushed by unwitting travelers.

Seasons still change in the mountains.

Fall has arrived.

We threw our glittering hopes into the sky,

Knowing that the hidden sun would catch them

To paint the clouds with vibrant rays.

We spread our darkest fears across the blue surround

Knowing that the mountains would keep them

To drape the ridges with mournful smoke.

Some removed masks that covered their faces.

Some donned masks to become who they were.

Everyone could be seen.

Soon we return to our different lands.

Most will live in some sort of shadow,

Careful of how to appear.

In our unguarded moments we look at the sky,

Yearning to glimpse a rainbow.

I held my darkness with tender care,

Warmed it in the cradle of my heart,

Gazed at it with kind regard.

What do you want of me?

Would anything I can do,

Anything I can ask of others,

Ease your suffering?

I do not ask you to leave,

Heap no blame upon you,

Force no unasked change.

You are the most faithful guest.

What will make you happy?

The sky has not yet lightened.

I grasp an hour before it passes,

Lay it down on the kitchen table,

And slice into the middle of its hurried time.

Inside I find a kernel,

A hardened instant that I place in my pocket.

Later in the rushing day, I hold it within my palm.

Breathing in the coolness of that secret pause

Breathing out the heated scurry of demand.

Thus reminded to be grateful, I open my hand.

The faint strike of a bowl resounds.

Somewhere in a darkened room,

A woman sits lost in sorrow.

She thinks of her mother and her mother’s mother,

Both long dead, buried in a distant land.

Their voices would rise and fall,

Weaving conversations that she still wore

Wrapped around her like a shawl.

They painted bones as they talked,

Bones that belonged to their mothers,

Painted them black like the night in which they fled

Painted them black like the rage they dared not show

Painted them black like the death of all they had loved.

On these bones they wrote

Wrote in the language of women hidden from men

Words that spoke the secrets of their lives

Named the children they had never held

Sang the songs their voices could not raise

Celebrated their beauty that was never revealed.

These memories warmed her, yet she wept.

She had no children, no lover, no friends.

Just herself alone in this desolate room.

Who would paint her bones?

From mother to mother to mother.

And so because of this, she cried.

Who would paint her bones? She had never learned these words of magic.

She was not a mother, would never be a mother.

Alone in a foreign country.

laughter is bitter

when you know the right questions

only after the fact

the trips made the operations performed

everything proclaimed a shining success

laughter is bitter

when returned at home

you struggle to find your way

life harder now than even before

laughter is bitter

let others go about their lives

they see what they want

this is nothing new

laughter is bitter

I’ve always known

and so I offer you honey

when I pour you a cup of tea