Alt text / plain text for this poem:
Do words belong
strictly because they come out.
a mouth?
What if you know vague collective
meaning
not specific articles?
Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chirutei
Is that enough?
Dayenu
v’yamlich malchutei b’chayeichon uvyomeichon uvchayei d’chol beit yisrael, baagala uvizman
kariv, v’imru:
Amen.
Let us bless transliteration
and chant
congregate right to left
to crest cold wind
Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya.
If you must meet with nine others to speak,
how many of the ten
must comprehend all the words?
Yitbarach v’yishtabach, v’yitpaar v’yitromam v’yitnaseh, v’yit-hadar v’yitaleh v’yit-halal sh’mei
d’kud’sha,–b’rich hu,
Is one enough
to reach
the ear of God?
Dayenu
l’eila mikol-birchata v’shirata, tushb’chata v’nechemata daamiran b’alma, v’imru:
Amen.
What if one of ten
doesn’t believe in God? Does that cancel
our prayer?
Is this vortex
an undivided voice of our making
or is each voice its own
offering?
Y’hei sh’lama raba min-sh’maya v’chayim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael; v’imru:
amen.
I’d like to address
a human soul.
Someone
who existed will know
I learned ten percent of these words and found
nine people to say them with –
Oseh shalom bimromav,
Before I said them in public, I said them
on my own: in the car,
in the shower, on a mountain, in a library, in a field,
at a cemetery
inside my head–
time’s trick: I know the syllables
increasingly by heart and know less
and less meaning.
Hu ya’aseh shalom
Meaning remains
unchanged: .
language disappears
not the sounds, not the rhythm
threads to an old communal emotion
Kaddish
Prayer,
hymn, holy. Our holiness arrives
through departure–
if mourning ends after one year,
does holiness dissipate?
What if I am not ready
to stop being holy?
Where’s death and mourning?
Not here:
this is an acclamation
with immeasurable meaning. Old words, how
they mean something else
for someone else.
aleinu v’al kol Yisrael, v’imru:
Amen.
Dayenu,
dayenu. .
MATTHEW ISAAC SOBIN‘s (he/him) first book was the science fiction novella, The Last Machine in the Solar System. His poems are in or forthcoming from The Lumiere Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Midway Journal, Orange Blossom Review, Ghost City Review, Does It Have Pockets, and The Hooghly Review. He received an MFA from California College of the Arts. You may find him selling books at Books on B in Hayward, California. He lives and writes with his wife and two dogs. Find him @WriterMattIsaac.
