Singing Kaddish

Because my friend is dying

I went on to the land she loves

            To say Kaddish for my mother,

Under fir trees, through overgrown thistles

Past the echoing barn,

The last holdouts of summer blackberries,

Following a horse trail,

            a goat trail,

            a deer trail,

            a labyrinth carved by the generations: Exodus.

A cricket told me where to rest,

There by the single daisy,

            the Queen Anne’s lace.

Thorns snatched at the fringes of my prayer shawl.

I prevailed.

We do prevail, said the twilight.

We prevail from our ashes,

            in the sea

            in the cedar grove
            on the mount

            on the mountain

at the wall

at the wailing of the day.

I traced the Aramaic letters,

            stumbling like a stranger to my own faith.

And then, as if in the beginning,

            Bereshit,

A voice rose up through me,

A song that made itself up as it went.

This memory is all I have of you.

This moment is all we have ever had of one another.

This grief is a verb.

This peace is always, always becoming what it will be.

Deborah J. Ross

17 Tishrei 5774