NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/arts/poems/13294

Text File | 1992-12-31 | 1.7 KB | 57 lines

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsi!cbnewsh!att-out!cbfsb!polaris!ktw
From: [e-mail] (79243-wolman)
Subject: Tashlich at Year's End
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Originator: [e-mail]
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: polaris.mh.att.com
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 20:03:25 GMT
Lines: 44


TASHLICH AT YEAR'S END

(Tashlich is the ceremony performed on the first day
of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, when bread
is cast into a stream or river to signify the
casting-off of the errors of the dying year.)

Tie it in a sack,
with knots as tight as the knots in your stomach:
tie the knots double,
lest what's inside is the Houdini
of your private demon-closet,
and may escape.
Weight it with stones,
carry it to the shores
of some convenient stream of living waters:
cast it as far as you can
(pray for it if it pleases you)--
but let it drown.

I'm sorry if you're squeamish,
and yes, killing is a sin:
but it's a war, after all:
and if some of you get queasy at the thought
of what's in the bag squirming,
choking for air,
think what it would do to you
if it got loose,
what it maybe did to you already,
or tried:
consider it a mercy-killing,
consider yourself prepaid
on the Five Stages of Grief,
and this casting-off a celebration.

Let the minstrels come in.

Kenneth Wolman, December 31, 1992
--
Kenneth Wolman          |       To die of fear of revealing yourself
AT&T Bell Laboratories  |       to the person who loves you is murder.
[phone]           |
[e-mail]  |           --Stan Rice, "Anne's Curls"