Explore Poems: Rosh Hashanah

On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged
psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I...

I like Rosh Hashonah late,
when the leaves are half burnt
umber and scarlet, when sunset
marks the horizon with slow fire
and the black silhouettes
of migrating birds perch
on the wires davening.

I like Rosh Hashonah late
when all living are counting
their days toward death
or sleep...

It was 1986, when currencies to be changed
          Into multiple-launch-surface, anti-tank missiles
Swarmed through numbered bank accounts
          Like Ovid’s seething knotted seed of frog-slime,
Which not seldome attracted by the sun falls
          In little frogs with the rain; when it...

To Him who is feared a Crown will I bring.
Thrice Holy each day acclaim Him my King;
At altars, ye mighty, proclaim loud His praise,
And multitudes too may whisper His lays.
Ye angels, ye men, whose good deeds He records—
Sing, He is...

The terrible sons of the mighty race
Shout in thunder the Lord is King,
The angels whose figure the lightnings trace
Flame to the world that the Lord was King,
And seraphs whose stature is one with Space,
Proclaim that...

Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
And naked branches point to frozen skies.
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,
The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn
A sea...

The letters of the Jews as strict as flames   
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages,   
Singing through solid stone the sacred names.   
The letters of the Jews are black and clean   
And lie in chain-line over Christian pages.   
The chosen letters...