Academic journal article Shofar
Our Exalted Guests
Article excerpt
We enter the sukah and invite the ancient ushpizin.
Our hearts are full like the harvest moon,
A chair in one corner covered with white silk
For these exalted guests.
A vase of day lilies rests on the table.
Overhead the sky is inky blue.
We see the stars
Through the canopy of evergreen boughs.
We were dancers with lighted torches in our hands
Musicians playing the lyre, trumpet, and cymbals
Singing songs and rejoicing
In the "water-drawing" from the pool of Shiloach.
Now we live in a less ecstatic rime
Of human bombs and scorched earth.
Still we invite our exalted guests.
Abraham brings with him loving-kindness,
Isaac unshakable equilibrium
And Jacob enters with the cloud of glory.
We were jugglers
Flipping fire torches into the night air
Everywhere the sound of water
As clear and as bright as the stars.
Moses and Aaron, loyal shepherds
Arrive to teach the blueprint of creation.
May our children grow like the fruits of Joseph
Who stands here tall and straight like the palm branch,
Joseph, interpreter of dreams, of the crisscrossing
Of actions and their consequences. …