My Father Under The Oxygen Mask Took Hold
Barbara D. Holender
On the Yahrzeit of my father

The taxi arrived for me
at the same moment the paramedics arrived
for him. I want you to leave, he gasped.
Sure, I said, right now I’m leaving the country.

At eight we called the family. At ten,
the doctor asked if we wanted heroic measures.

At two, he struggled to tell me something.
Don’t, I thought, Don’t say goodbye.
I leaned closer. Pay the rent, he wheezed,
Tell Mom it’s the first of the month.

At three the doctor gave him, maybe, six months.
At four my uncle choked back tears.
Hey, you owe me two cents.
I’m broke, said my father,
Loan me two cents so I can pay you. read more

All that glass

shattered one long ago November night,
can never ever be swept away.

Splinters are pushing into the light of day,
still sharp on all sides.

When sunshine hits these broken pieces,
millions of yahrzeit lights illumine the loss,

while fragments of the rainbow flicker with hope
and the promise of Tikkun Olam.

Gertrud J. Lind

1998-2008

Shadow Play At The Western Wall
Barbara D. Holender

Caperbushes sprout through dry crevices, spattering shade
on stone eighty feet above the congregation.

One chassid among the flock of crows–that one–
dances with himself in prayer,
sways left, now right seven times,
forward thirteen, now seventeen short bows,
again and again, pliant as a lulav,
is shadow advancing, earlocks matching
flying curl for curl, even the fringes
of his tallit, almost even the stripes
sharp in shadow, so clear the light,
so light the air, ah that Jerusalem air. read more

Bible Students In The Sukkah
Barbara D. Holender

What does it matter
that we are forever looking things up
and forgetting them?
Our minds are like the sukkah:
crowned with evergreen
open to the stars and winds
hung with our best fruits
and reconstructed each year.

The pine boughs shake down sun,
the leaves of our books cast up light,
and all our ancestors
cluster around us, saying
This is who we were
and this is what we did
and this is what it meant.

So it must have been in Pumbedita
in ample Babylon
where our Talmudic fathers
from every jot and tittle
extracted meanings
and over golden dates and wine
discoursed on the family tree read more

Gleaning Buckeyes
Barbara D. Holender

Pay no attention to that gray-haired woman
kicking around under the chestnut trees.
She has been gleaning buckeyes
fifty years from these same trees
on this same campus,
sorting the squirrels’ leavings,
stomping them from their burrs.
How they gleam–the good grain
spreading from the stem scars
five, six shades of wood.

Nevermind the children are long grown,
the grandkids past these outings.
She is the schoolgirl ever Octobering,
glossing her harvest with remembering thumbs. read more

God’s Gentleman
Barbara D.Holender

I wear his battered hat, his bolo tie.
The family album shows my eyes
and mouth are his, his are my crooked fingers
tracing the spidery script of his last letter–
Dearest No. 1 child…

God’s gentleman, the rabbi called him,
and quick-witted, a caring man
whose outer and inner selves were one.
The whole congregation saw me nodding, smiling,
as the words gave my father back to me.

In his name, a Biblical garden
blooms in Arizona. I see my creators
in the cool of the day, walking to and fro.
My father bends to console my mother.
Me too, I say. read more

TORAH
Barbara D. Holender

Even when you hold it in your arms
you have not grasped it.
Wrapped and turned in upon itself
the scroll says, Not yet.

Even when you take them into your eyes
you have not seen them; elegant
in their crowns the letters stand aloof.

Even when you taste them in your mouth
and roll them on your tongue
or bite the sharp unyielding strokes
they say, Not yet.

And when the sounds pour from your throat
and reach deep into your lungs for breath,
even then the words say, Not quite.

But when your heart knows its own hunger
and your mind is seized and shaken,
and in the narrow space between the lines
your soul builds its nest, read more

DINAH
daughter of Jacob and Leah
Barbara D. Holender

Why don’t you kill me and be done with it?
My big brothers, my protectors–
Where were you when Shechem took me?
I cried out for you.

My father has four wives;
not one of them warned me of such things.
I have twelve brothers;
not one watched over me.
I have no sister
so I went to see the daughters of the land,
and Shechem found me. And forced me.

Where were you all those days
he kept me in his house?
I told him you would kill him,
but when you did not come, and he grew kind
we fell in love, and then I said
I hoped you would be friends. read more

Deborah The Prophetess & Yael: Two Poems for Parashat Shoftim
Barbara D. Holender

Deborah The Prophetess

So, Barak, we’ve won the big fight
and Sisera’s done for
and good old Deborah’s one of the boys.
Off to the battlefield, Deborah,
I won’t go if you don’t, Deborah–
Why doesn’t it occur to you
I want to wear gorgeous robes
and smell of perfume
and just stay home, like Jael.

How come I know everything in advance
and you know nothing from yesterday?
For days before the battle
your men kept pure from women–
Where do you think your army went
all hot with victory
while you were counting Canaanite foreskins?
Damn it, Barak, wake up! read more

Zipporah
Barbara D. Holender
For this week  parashat Re’eh

I know I’ll never get that house he promised me.
We’ve had an option on the property for years.
You’d think it was a million miles away–
we could have been there already,
but first he won’t take the responsibility
and then he drags along the whole mischpoche.

I can’t reach him, his head’s in the clouds.
Moses, I tell him, a promise is a promise;
and he says, It’s a firm commitment,
have a little faith. But nothing
keeps happening
and happening
and happening. read more