I spent years in a cave writing nothing but sonnets
I chanted my mantra in iambic beat
ate my meals from quatrain plates
drank my wine from gold couplets

used a quill to pick rhymes
from my chattering teeth
my hair grew wild and free as verse
my heart exploded with love that was fierce

and yet here I am, here I still am
coping with nothing but paper and pen

“Thy people shall be my people”

                                          -Ruth 1:16

Smoke rises here from foul Gehenna’s fires
Fires set by souls twisted like cold barbed wire
Sole argument of ideologies
Strung geometrically from hate to hate

Smoke rises here; soft ashes fall as death
Torah, Mishnah, and Gemera – and us
For without the Word and the People Israel
We are but wraiths, and darkly blown about

O Israel!

You are the broom tree in the wilderness
The Tree of Life who shelters all with love
You are the tent of Sarah and Abraham
And we are blessed who find refuge in you