49 toward the Omer

malkhut shebmalkhut

Sometimes,
the reason
you choose
the work

cannot
be how
you do it

and sometimes,
healing
the pain
of the world
requires
not having
to heal it

You
have seventy
faces—so do I—

We will turn
ourselves, each other,
around again and again
and find everything in it.

48 toward the Omer

yesod shebmalkhut

The dog lays down on the dike.
It looks so good, I try it myself.
Do you need to be pet? I get asked.
Everyone laughs.

And in this hug,
here, by the bike,
I’m done worrying
about if I am wanted,
and our connection,
thus, is possible.

47 toward the Omer #2

hod shebmalkhut

I sit on the stone ledge, give myself space to know that I don’t have to know what’s here in order to be here, let the search to know fall away. What’s left? Well, everything. I walk home barefoot, step after dusty step, find myself unexpectedly met.

47 toward the Omer

hod shebmalkhut

She asks if I want someone else in the room, tells me what I will feel before I feel it, guides me to breathe deep and let my body sink down to the earth, shares what a trigger point is. You’re not making it up, she says,

referring to muscle pinching nerve that muscle then tightens to protect, maybe a referral from somewhere else, and refers me to PT. You’re not making it up, she says. She says this and not only this, and in giving me both, she gives me a way forward.

46 toward the Omer

netzach shebmalkhut

Постоянно, my brain says, as it has every netzach day for weeks. I finally look up the etymology, relearn the combination of standing and time that makes up always. Is eternity in perfective or delimitative aspect? I ask. Depends where you’re looking out from, God says.

45 toward the Omer

tiferet shebmalkhut

At night my mouth learns what giving and receiving actually mean—another narrow bridge rediscovers joy—and today is the third day running, which means I’m off and running. My jawbone bounces with each footfall, masseter and temporalis finally trusting me to keep me safe.

The thoughts are a restless kitten; I take her out of my head, into my hands. Eva, Theo, and Rosa head to shul, and I am with them part of the way. No more lip service, God says. Yeah, I’m done with that, I say.

44 toward the Omer

gevurah shebmalkhut

I run to someone else’s home, knowing they are not home. The thoughts come, and I remember I have more choice than I used to. What do I have other than choices? God, give me what I need to know in order to change,

but ideally not by the way of suffering. Maybe, God says, what a soul is is the ability to change without any external input. Free will was in this place, I say, and I didn’t know it. I set my direction again, again, again.

43 toward the Omer

chesed shebmalkhut

Today, I put on my shoes, run to their house regardless of if they are there, knock on the window. I wait a moment. I see the growth of the succulents in the stone bowl. I keep myself. At home, I run home.

42 toward the Omer

malkhut shebyesod

I bring half an apple, water, my keys, a handkerchief, and all the people and choices and years that have helped me get to this place where I am solid enough in myself to ask you if you can help me understand.

41 toward the Omer

yesod shebyesod

When you lay a new foundation, does it go above or below the old one? Foundations, God says, are not linear; that’s how they can also be connections. How awesome is this place, I say. Me? You? Here? God says, laughing.

40 toward the Omer

hod shebyesod

A year and two months later, Dr. Nanine Ewing dies. I remember all of us lying down on our bellies on the carpet of that hotel conference room, finishing the dance, faces full above the candles we then blow out.

And how have I done, Nanine? “Appraise the affects that come from universal group stages,” “Identify movement that has interest and draws intention versus movements that take us into past or future,” “Contrast movement of spontaneity and authenticity versus performance”—

learning objectives for “relationship with the body unconscious”? If you weren’t performing, God says, then you don’t need a review. My love quotes an elder: “You know, someone told me once that if you’re looking for the truth,

that means you don’t have it. So stop looking. Then you’ll have it.” I stop looking, keep writing. My head is heavy from the hour and maybe only from the hour, and there is nothing, and everything, more to know.

39 toward the Omer

netzach shebyesod

She chooses a few points to be moxi needles. She holds a lighter, clicks, moves, says as plumes of smoke rise, I won’t leave the room while you’re on fire. I am grateful. I breathe, slowly stop being incensed.

38 toward the Omer

tiferet shebyesod

At the optometrist. Episcleritis, which I am told was probably caused by all of the above. The radio plays. I tune in, hear “why do you see, why do you see, why do you see right through me.”

37 toward the Omer

gevurah shebyesod

How many social workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? I pretend they ask me. Only one, I respond, but she’ll probably caution you that the bulb won’t do much good if it’s burnt out.

36 toward the Omer

chesed shebyesod

Malden. I’ll have leftover ramen. The couch takes me in. We go to bed under yellow linen. In Northampton, I make us dinner for the first time in weeks: split pea soup, some peas decidedly unsplit.

35 toward the Omer

malkhut shebhod

She collects daffodils to see us home. We picked good ones, she says to me by the car. I think they picked us, I say. You haven’t picked me off yet, the final tick says.

34 toward the Omer

yesod shebhod

The tide rushes out faster than I ever thought it could. I look down, see sand where there was water. The island we jumped on rocks to get to is no island at all.

33 toward the Omer

hod shebhod

Today, our hair keeps growing. I sit on the screen porch on the iron chair next to the compost bowl, look out past it to the open door and the rain beyond.

32 toward the Omer

netzach shebhod

My love makes oatmeal again, and I eat it gratefully. This headache, I hope, is a passing one. The snozzberries still smell like snozzberries, the poems like poems. I put off worrying.

31 toward the Omer

tiferet shebhod

I don’t want to go there, and I can’t be where I’m not, except when I can, and then, who am I, and who is that? And if not now, when?

The force of when weighs on me as maybe the idea of in motion weighs on a ball that is not in motion. “Yet”? God flicks a finger, tumbles me forward.

30 toward the Omer

gevurah shebhod

She makes us oatmeal. I groan. What was yesterday? I ask. Yesterday you worked a ten-hour day, she says, and then we had pizza, and then you did more set-up.

Ten hours, I think. Ten times three is thirty. She sets a steaming bowl down next to my chair. The dates are at the bottom, she says. I start searching.

29 toward the Omer

chesed shebhod

I sit on the stone eating my lunch and try not to self-reflect. Inside, she sleeps. The daffodils smell stronger than I ever knew daffodils did. It’s not self-

reflection, God says, if you haven’t correctly identified yourself first. Okay then, I say. Action-reflection. If you haven’t separated yourself from your actions, God says, that’s just as bad.

Am I not my actions? I say. Am I my actions? God says. I don’t know, I say. All of my names are approximations, God says, especially the nominalizations

and the predicates. You seem to’ve largely avoided anthimeria, I say. When someone says my name in vain, God says, who becomes vanity—me, them, or the connection between us?

28 toward the Omer

malkhut shebnetzach

Yesterday, the seaweed waited for the tide to come back, lift it to the fullest movements from the places it attached, air preserved inside just for this purpose.

I imagine that today it waits again. And I imagine that waiting is not the right word. I imagine that waiting is very much not the right word.

27 toward the Omer

yesod shebnetzach

Maine. A field of rocks among blueberries, or blueberries among rocks. Cranberries from last year are still connected to where they grew from, until I eat them.

26 toward the Omer

hod shebnetzach

We film Zoloft’s arrival down the pneumatic tube outside of CVS. Nature generally abhors a vacuum, God says. I don’t actually need any pressure, I say.

25 toward the Omer

netzach shebnetzach

I focus on one of the two things that can be said to be certain, according to some dead people back when they were alive.

24 toward the Omer

tiferet shebnetzach

Somewhere between today and tomorrow is the turning point, although in the desert it might make sense to ask what the turn is toward,

if there is someone around to ask, and if there is no one around, it might make sense to ask what that’s about, anyway,

which itself could be the turning point. I’m not at a mountain yet, God, but Earth itself is a sphere, where anywhere I stand

that is not artificially exalted or lowered still leaves me on a different level from everyone else. Ah, God says. A three-dimensional evaluation

with attention given to the one axis that sets you apart. All three do, I say. Don’t be too hard on yourself, God says.

23 toward the Omer

gevurah shebnetzach

My left hand blocks the water on its way from the green plastic can to the potting soil, and I rely on it

to do its job imperfectly, which means I must be misdefining either the job or perfection or maybe both. Time keeps on slippin’,

slippin’, slippin’, into the future, my mind sings in my dad’s voice in the name of the Steve Miller Band. Yes, God says;

I found out quickly that when My hand is outstretched there’s some space between the fingers. Would you rather it some other way?

No, I say. I think maybe that’s how the world still exists, which maybe means I should thank you for doing your job

so imperfectly. I think you’re misdefining either the job or perfection or maybe both, God says. So you’re finally forgiving yourself? I say.

Amphibians really got it right, God deflects, with the webbing. But Pharaoh didn’t learn the lesson. It was a little opaque, I say.

I close my eyes. I open my eyes. No layer of film, just a season for everything. My system regulates. Four colors can

be next to each other on a map, I dream of telling my middle school math teacher, if you include the fourth axis.

22 toward the Omer

chesed shebnetzach

Back to work again, the type that pays the bills. A full day of clients turns into half a day of clients

but is still a full day. Sign language class teaches the word for experience. I run my hand down my beardless cheek.

21 toward the Omer

malkhut shebtiferet

You walk outside, allowing yourself to, and I sit sewing. Sometimes, when repairing a seam, I say, it creates new wrinkles.

20 toward the Omer

yesod shebtiferet

I did not expect to be talking with you while sweeping, washing kale, making tuna fish, and deviling these eggs,

but I also did not expect to be doing any of those things, either. My left hand shows what’s next,

all of me ready to follow. My left foot, surrounded by water, dances on earth, sends the ripples around again.

8-19 toward the Omer

8 And there was a day, and there was
9 a next day, and each one existed. The scarf
10 takes orange form line by line and waits for me
11 wherever we’ve left off, which is more than I can say
12 for myself, these days, or is it less? It’s different when you’re
13 an animate object, well, subject, God says. Sentient beings have never been good
14 at not changing while they wait. Neither are rocks, I say. Watch your categories,
15 God says. And anyway, when have rocks ever just been waiting? And really, what about
16 the scarf? I don’t know about the scarf, I say, except that its future is still
17 tied up with mine. Good, God says, sounding like my grandmother. Your futures will keep each other
18 fine company until you get there. No waiting involved. Will they be glad when I arrive? I say.
19 Will you? God says. Yeah, I say, I think so. Then there’s nothing else to worry about, God says.

7 toward the Omer

malkhut shebchesed

I stop turning out and turning in.
I return. How long has it been?
It’s not the width of the bridge,
God says, it’s not taking on more
than it can bear. How, I say,
do I learn to measure that load
when I have already lost my bearings?
If these bonds are not the bonds
of life, God says, they aren’t mine.
I stop turning out and turning in.
My hips run straight as they wish,
a very narrow bridge unafraid between them.

6 toward the Omer

yesod shebchesed

Again, I come before the waters.
The sticks play, name our connection.
I am yours, you are mine,
you are what you are—I
am what I am—God, mercy—
these sticks—they name our connection
as sure as these tears do

5 toward the Omer

hod shebchesed
after Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”

“You do not have to”—

like the harder choice is
the hundred miles of desert

rather than letting fall away
all else other than only

maybe it takes it happening
to understand where love livens

maybe then the humble body
will rest and be free

You’re still not getting her,
God says. Just pluck out

the thing you want to
keep. Don’t waste any more

on wading through the scraps.
Act like she wrote, like

every day is Shabbos, chosen
before anything else ever existed.

Nice, I say. I thought
so too, God says. No,

I say, I mean it’s
nice to see you again.

4 toward the Omer

netzach shebchesed

Today, blood is not
a plague, although I
seem to be undecided
about my other exports.

I hear faint music
through the Zoom sound
from their TikTok scrolling,

familiar, now the background
to scary videos unfolding
loop by interlocking loop.

Anger—I protect myself.
Sadness—I protect love.
Love—I am annihilated.
Fear—I protect untruth.
Truth—I protect future.

I thought the skies
would be less gray
after the rain stopped,
but here we are,

still alive. And at
this final moment Dov
sends photos of the
earth, of flowers, yellow,

purple, green. The needles
pass the string back
and forth, building up
what goes between them.

3 toward the Omer

tiferet shebchesed

I don’t think
these seeds from
last year’s flowers

need more fecundity
but MiracleGro is
all I have

I plant them
in the egg
carton, wash my
hands as instructed

2 toward the Omer

gevurah shebchesed

don't confuse
your needs

with kindness—

if these
are different,

so be

1 toward the Omer

After 400 Years
chesed shebchesed

One
sometimes
does
not
know

how
to
ask—

in
not
being
asked

the
answer

has
already
been
made
clear,
no?—

but
even
when

I’ve
lost
myself

nestled
in
me

is
something

that
will,

recognized,

respond

Pre-Pesach poem 5781: Constriction

The hammock stretches under me as I shift position
and a diamond imprints into the skin of my left arm.

My right hand goes to pass something to my left hand
and finds it is no longer connected—when did that happen?

The butterfly lands again on the stalk—it always does—
but I must never have envisioned where grass meets ground.

Now, I grow the forest lush on my back. I make it teem with life
connected to mine. The bleakness opens ahead, unthreatening

once I know it’s there, and where it is. I will walk in.
If others follow, so be it. But I cannot afford to wait,

and the green-gold waves simply won’t. We have a deal,
you see: They will split, after I enter, before I part.

You belong here, the dog says as it eats my bones.
I say You too, collect myself and run away.

Nettles, lemon, water, honey

Nettles, lemon, water, honey, stirred together with the back of the spoon— this the ashes of puposeless fire, like to like, to sweep it all through.