A SWEET YEAR

No honey until you're a year old, but
I can pop the seal on a pint
of last year's applesauce.

The afternoon light was thick and gold
the day we cored a bushel and a peck,
hands sticky and kitchen fragrant.

The jars were earmarked: for latkes,
for breakfast, and for you --
whoever you might turn out to be.

I remember resting my palm on my belly.
I can't remember not knowing
your voice, your eyes, my expanded heart.

This week's mother poem arises out of the fact that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tonight at sundown. It's traditional in many Ashkenazic communities to eat slices of apple dipped in honey as an embodied prayer for a sweet year to come.

Tonight as we ring in the new year, Drew will (God willing!) be comfortably asleep in his crib at home while I serve my congregation as co-shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader.) 5770 has been a pretty incredible ride; here's to 5771!

This poem wasn't written in response to a Big Tent Poetry prompt, and I won't be able to edit this post on Friday to link to the "Come One, Come All" post (I'll be in synagogue for the second day of the festival -- though my sermon for Friday morning is slated to auto-post, I can't auto-update this post because I don't know the link of the Come One, Come All post.) So if you want to see what others wrote this week, you'll have to navigate over there yourself.