A Good Week..

One day you were born More light came into the world
We all became blessed
(10/7/11)

In the midst of noise
I stop and write a haiku
Find my still small voice
(10/13/11)

I sorted through and through away some papers tonight, including two pages that had the above haiku on them. I've lost some good poems. Sigh. I've saved some good ones too. Yay.

A friend recently told me about his friend Aharon Applefeld. At lunch today I found out that he's a big famous writer in Israel. Who knew? My friend speaks of him with such affection and admiration. At lunch when I asked my table mate if she enjoys Applefeld I was told that you don't enjoy him, as he writes exclusively about the Holocaust. Said friend recommended I read the David Grossman's To the End of the Land. I had tried and couldn't get past the cryptic start. No-one at the meal had heard that Obama took the book on his summer vacation. It was one of several. The president is into books - reading and writing them.

A dear friend at the meal told me that he thought I might like a certain poem of his available online. I did like it. I liked the way he describes his touching the tactile marks in shul. I like the way he writes in small letters, like his father before him. And I like the way he tiptoes around his father's passing away:

old shul: pacing

as i pace the benches
i search out
the taped-over BB hole in the window
the constellation-like pattern of rug spots
the rusting fire extinguisher mount

these are the landmarks
that have kept me steady

i reach
out to touch
the small metal plates
identifying each bench by letter
A through Q
the back wall
bringing the alphabet to a sudden
end

sometimes i imagine
benches R through Z
all polished and plush
in some suburban synagogue
where so many moved
escaped

either that or
broken splintered dead
with all the others

when growing up
we used to sit on P
and i felt a certain
pride of ownership
P being my first initial

until my brother and
i were respectively banished
by my dad
to rows O and
Q
after a particularly noisy
argument

and i stayed on Q
long after
my brother fled
until the day my dad
stopped pacing
could not be counted

and i left Q
moved up to D
because there
was nowhere
further back
to go.

On Friday a colleague innocently mentioned having her students write Latin haiku. She didn't know I published a haiku book. Within minutes she was the owner of a copy. It has been a little while since I gave the book to anyone, the early flurry of sending it to dear friends having passed. I just remembered that I owe some copies to recent contest winners). It had been a while since I read the book myself and over Shabbos I read it straight through. It took a lot of my resources to get it done and I am so grateful to G-d that my book is out there.I almost went to a Carlebach memorial concert tonight. Instead I stayed in reading Holy Beggars. As I write the soundtrack of They're Playing Our Song is on via Rdio.com. It makes me think of my childhood friend Seth (whom I set up with his wife).

At lunch I asked for a minute on the clock to say a dvar Torah (it took 1:20, but that included the participation of a third grader intern rabbi). My thought was that Avimelech's name reflects that he had his job because his father had it first, while Avraham's name meant that kings would come from him. Avimelech was all about himself, when he prays that G-d should not kill a righteous man he is speaking of himself. When Avraham said the same prayer it was to save others, the people of Sedom. May we be blessed to be like Avraham, to look forward and reach outward.

My friend spoke about how the reading of Rosh HaShanah comes from this week's parsha, to his mind, because it's about the tough moral decisions of life.

There's more to say, but I can't stay, time to go count sheep till I fall asleep, all good things must end, even writing friends, I can't sit hear and yawn till dawn, soon I'll be getting up to pray and start my rich day, selling to a new crop, and acting as traffic cop, at the open house of my school (I hope the new kids think I'm cool), so I won't say more of what's new, for I must bid you adieu, bless your soul to reach great heights as G-d polishes it tonight.