"A vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping." - Paul Simon

I had students taking a final this morning and came in to answer their questions and to write more finals. As I type, Josh Radin sings, " I know I'll be OK." This time of year is hard. It's over, it's not over, I have to be here, I don't have to be here, it's over , it's not over...

A colleague of mine once told me that I should change the name of this blog to something about being super sensitive. I thought it might sound like showing off (not that NY's Funniest Rabbi hasn't evoked accusations of being a show off), and just wasn't comfortable with it. That reminds me of an original joke of mine - It used to be that if you looked up the word shy in the dictionary you'd find my photo. I made them take it out. I don't know why...it just made me uncomfortable.

What is life? I think a major part of life is sharing and connecting. I have a friend that I've nicknamed the vault. He is a holder of secrets of many. Truth be told I hold some people's secrets too. I hold and cherish the secrets, cradle and protect them. We don't look for hard times in life and yet sometimes it's through the hard times that we connect and share and accept and hold together in the deepest of the deepest of the deepest of ways.

I'm thinking of naming my haiku book, "This poem is short because I do not have time to write a long one." The following poems were written tonight in and around the subway following a pleasant social engagement.

Possibilities,

Like well crafted spoken words,

Have to be chiseled

~

Less is really less

It's only now and then that

We see less as more

~

First off long was long -

long before short came along,

became the new long

~

This poem is short

because I do not have time

to write a long one

~

Waiting for my train

Or am I engineering?

Or under the train

~

ON THE SUBWAY

t

So crowded in here

Bells chime and the door closes

We are each alone

I guess Paul Simon was right

Existentialism lives

~

Chivalry, I think

Is neither alive nor dead

It goes up and down