Last night
as I sat in
the ancient temple
atop the mountain,
my people surrounding
           me, generations
upon generations,
  voices ascending
       in the wispy and
            earthbound solidarity
                 of ancient prayers,
I felt the words
               rise up
around me, protecting, loving
their intonations
           tingling inside
the doorways
         of my brain
expanding the limits
through glass
and sacred ceilings,
       up unto the stars
celestial understandings
pushing through
my crumbling
walls to break
through barriers
         from the thickness
of night
reaching out
      into purity, a beckoning
             of light
and the words, the singsong tones
passed down from the ancients    
like candlelit incantations
         grew soft, invisible wings    
             that touched my cheek
                   the silky presence of
               the grounded power            
             of my ancestors
welling up in the
         dark caverns within
and as we sang
of new beginnings
         and listened with one heart
to the call of the shofar,
        that ram's horn of blessings,
                            my knotted
loops of longing
resonated in musical notes
strands of the primordial
               in the deep forest
echoes
             of my being
linking my soul's cry
to all the people
           of my book
in a long swirling line
              down to the river,
the desert, the oceans
a tight braided chord
of solidarity, of lineage, of blood
the flesh and bones of heritage
pumping crimson freedom
Yes,
somewhere,
          in even the most
                broken chords
                   of heartstrings
                tiny wings
beat                    
        hope