Thursday, May 28, 2020

49 toward the Omer

malkhut shebmalkhut

I did not know, forty-nine days ago, that the road would lead me home. I know I’ve arrived, because even if the days continue, I no longer feel need to keep count. That’s why I call the stars by name, God says, tell them numbers at random as lullabies.

48 toward the Omer

yesod shebmalkhut

She stands, eyes closed,
before him, facing us, and sings,
and we, invited, sing too, from the start,
and because of this, she doesn’t have to end
by going back to the beginning.
I don’t need to know where he’s gone.
He passed on his spirit while living.

47 toward the Omer

hod shebmalkhut

In order to be present for someone else, I’ve got to be present for myself. Exactly, God says. Is that what tsimtsum, what hester panim, is about? Nah, God says. For me, there is no myself and someone else. But isn’t that—? I say. Hush, God says.

I take the keys I will lose in two days and go to Walgreens, show myself I still exist in more than one place. There was evening, there was morning, the forty-seventh day. The plans and the prep were done, the dishwasher and all of its dishes.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

46 toward the Omer

netzach shebmalkhut

The task today, at least this task, is easy enough: water the areas of grass seed, ten minutes each. The two of us take turns, folding the hose over upon itself to stop the flow, moving the sprinkler, releasing, waiting. In the evening, the thunderstorms come.

45 toward the Omer

tiferet shebmalkhut

Ohio. The family gathered outside in three units of two chairs each is ready for bed, but there is still wood on the grate, and there is no plan for dousing, and I don’t want it to burn down alone without warming anyone, and she

stays here with me. We go inside, get grape juice and spices, bless you. It is hard to get shadows onto my palms from this angle. We sit again, the Big Dipper above us between the trees. Fires don’t die, I say; they get released.

44 toward the Omer

gevurah shebmalkhut

Ohio. I hear noise, watch the rest of the toads jump into the water along the neighborhood road, all except for one, who stays on the bank. I want to stay, too, but the dog pulls us on. You could have stayed, God says.

On the next loop, I sit on the asphalt as the five of us talk, look up at the couple who left still-warm homemade pizza in aluminum foil in the garage for us last night. Nothing, everything, remains to be known, don’t you think?

Monday, May 25, 2020

43 toward the Omer

chesed shebmalkhut

We had already planned the trip, and now we know why we are going, though the real reason hasn’t changed. We are gentle with ourselves in the morning. We had already packed some black clothes. We sweep the floors. We water the seedlings.

42 toward the Omer

malkhut shebiysod

I told you that I expected to feel a bit romantic and melancholy walking back home, but I feel a different kind of good. A great rush overhead causes me to look up, see a full God’s wing’s worth of rustling leaves.

A great rush overhead causes me to look up, see a full God’s wing’s worth of rustling leaves. I cannot imagine leaving, start scouting out the next tree, stay until I know this continues with me—this already is continuing with me.

I cannot imagine leaving, stay until I know you continue with me—you already are continuing with me. I told you that I expected to feel a bit romantic and melancholy walking back home, but this is a different kind of good.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

41 toward the Omer

yesod shebiysod

Can you hear me now? God says. Yeah, I say. Great, God says. No need to catch me up; the connection was laggy but then everything you were saying came through super fast. Zoom does that, I say. Yeah, God says.

40 toward the Omer

hod shebiysod

On the way back from dropping off a roll of toilet paper at my neighbor’s stoop I check on the bachelor buttons I transplanted two days ago, learn a difficult way that the ones remaining will benefit from daily watering

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

39 toward the Omer

netzach shebyesod

Casting about this morning for a sound that can surround as I take responsibility for finishing up some progress notes before the next session, I almost turn on Pandora radio, instead open the windows, let the birds hold me.

38 toward the Omer

tiferet shebyesod

We lean on the wood railings of the plank bridge over the Mill River in the forest loops of Amherst’s portion of the Robert Frost Trail before circling back to her house along the road not yet taken

37 toward the Omer

gevurah shebyesod

I put on what I want to put on, your “don’t you think that’s a little low-cut for shul?” from ten years ago still in my head, but today my shul is everywhere and I am through

we learn Midrash Tanchuma with our breaths covered sitting a discreet distance from each other on the low stone wall along the sidewalk along the grass along the curb along the street that connects our two houses

what makes time with you time that I like is that time exists in our words the same as between them, which maybe allows space to exist in us the same as between us, all together, apace

Friday, May 15, 2020

36 toward the Omer

chesed shebyesod

The kind enthusiasm of Steve, then Katherine, then Sharon, who together spend two hours and twenty-six minutes on the phone with me today trying to help my computer and the network understand that they could connect—

as evidenced by the fact that Firefox at least was having no trouble—and what wonder, after reboots and screenshares and diagnostics and retries, to find that all we needed to do was switch network location

from “Automatic” to “Home,” click “Advanced,” then “TCP/IP,” then “Renew DHCP Lease.” DHCP—Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, which should have been giving me an address. Sharon gives me a high five by saying it. “By default,”

the User Guide she emails me states, “your Mac uses the Automatic location, which automatically provides settings for any network ports that it detects are available.” “It was probably hung up on the network location of

you were there,” she says, meaning New York City on March 7 in the evening, the last time a text message I sent showed up on my computer screen. Now here, shall we pick up again?

Thursday, May 14, 2020

35 toward the Omer

malkhut shebhod

And this was the drop that did it: the screen half-fills with muted horizontals, subtractive primary color verticals. Blessing in disguise, I keep saying. My hastily purchased external display shows everything remains below the surface.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

34 toward the Omer

yesod shebhod

These both exist: this first hyssop seedling green above the dirt, seed case still stuck to cotyledons; catching up on paperwork that will only ever be completed enough to not be behind on paperwork

and what would it mean to be apace with you, like Chanoch? I pick the wax from my ears; it will regenerate in time for next week’s inquiry. Eternity knows no vector, God says,

only points, concentric and fractal. I think everything can be reduced to distance, proximity, I say. Sure, God says. But when measuring how far you are from me, don’t forget to check behind you.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

33 toward the Omer

hod shebhod

there is nothing but for to be with you as we plop, plop, two separate raindrops, throw hands of spray into the air, release ourselves into the pooling wideness of all to come

Monday, May 11, 2020

32 toward the Omer

netzach shebhod

In high school I received an essay back where I’d written about not knowing what to write about and the teacher gave me an A for mechanics and a C for content

with a comment “do you know how many times I’ve read an essay about this?” and this teacher was great and momentous and also I wish I had known how to say

you’ve been teaching high school English since my mother went to this high school—but this is my first time here—what you perceive as common, cliché, is for me direly particular

Sunday, May 10, 2020

31 toward the Omer

tiferet shebhod

In the room that is, because it’s Sunday, more second bedroom than office, I, dancing, look at the Zoom screen, see that my arms are not on level with my shoulders,

that I am taller than I think myself to be. I forget about a client, having scheduled them on a Sunday without writing it down, and write down, unconfirmed, next week.

I go downstairs to switch washer into dryer; the thirty-minute cycle has one minute left for an unknown number of minutes. I walk outside to wait. The hammock’s web holds me.

Saturday, May 9, 2020

30 toward the Omer

gevurah shebhod

We sing Mizmor L'David on the white couch by the spotted plant where I can't tell if the shorter stalks I am noticing for the first time are new growth
or bits that kind of died long ago. Goodness has been pursuing you all the days of your life, God says. When are you going to let it catch up?

Friday, May 8, 2020

29 toward the Omer

chesed shebhod

And today is the day that there is not enough time for this and that and now there is dinner and there are friends and I acknowledge it all

Thursday, May 7, 2020

28 toward the Omer

malkhut shebnetzach

I tell her that I don’t feel I’ve earned a foot rub. What would you have to do to earn a foot rub? she says, rubbing my feet.

Their neighbor bordered two gardens with bricks found under the soil where the building had been. The second pothos given us by our friend prepares a new leaf.

I enter the kitchen to find the dishes that I had suggested maybe if I did them that would make me a human worthy of a foot rub already done.

The parsley and rosemary get their plastic pots today, and I run late to a stoop breakfast, later move seedlings from porch to porch to follow the sun.

I realize that I finally have forgotten to remember that driving to get somewhere quicker is an option. I sense that this forgetting is another kind of remembering.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

27 toward the Omer

yesod shebnetzach

In the morning, I follow my mother's counsel, nudging more topsoil around each tomato seedling in the egg cartons before we talk on speakerphone as I shower.

I take a quiet late lunch on the second floor porch. Prop my feet. Watch a bird across the street enjoy a driveway puddle before flying somewhere.

26 toward the Omer #2

hod shebnetzach

My brother counsels me on seedlings. I don’t know if mine are flopping because they’re too cold or too dry or too wet, I text him.
Put them outside for a few hours a day, he texts back. Let them get some wind in there it’ll strengthen the stems by stressing them.
Great thank you. What if it’s too late!! I guess it won’t be too late for all, I text. It isn’t too late, he texts back;
They’re just floppy cause they’re babies. Babies are floppy, I think, and I smile, and I water them some more, and I start to trust again.

26 toward the Omer

hod shebnetzach

She paints, and I paint too, and I get handed back myself, just as I have been. I apply new layers to let old shine through.

25 toward the Omer

netzach shebnetzach

Sometimes it is hardest to move forward when forward is still felt as behind, although perhaps this is where the most honor can be found.

Sunday, May 3, 2020

24 toward the Omer

tiferet shebnetzach

Talking with my mom on the way to the co-op, which is closed for Heroic Staff Day, I learn that we are intergenerational overplanters.
Tilling the soil in front of one garden bed before seeding marigolds, I touch worms, curious. Two pots of rooibos tea last all day.
I miss you when we don’t talk, especially on days like today, with all here quiet and good. I start knowing what I seek.

23 toward the Omer

gevurah shebnetzach

Our friend can’t go to France, so she goes to France here. She brings us along—group discount. Bonne Fierté! we shout out
from our curbside café. The accordionist plays. How timeless the day, and how situated. We dance in the street, scarf held between us.

Friday, May 1, 2020

22 toward the Omer

chesed shebnetzach

This head aches with lack of sleep and losing track and holding sadness and knows the only way through sadness is through
the only way through this poem is through is the head hurt slowly moving down to mouth with jaw relaxing to open
the fingers hold the poem, the tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth but is not parched, it’s a humid mourning
Springtime comes full bloom, something blooms from the edges of my arms, someone pulls me to more open posture from my armpits