MORNING PRAYER

Leaves
an echo on
my arm, a spiral fading.
I hope the imprint on my heart
stays.

This little poem is a cinquain, a five-line poem. I've posted this kind of poem here before -- see last year's Daily April poem: a cinquain -- though last year's cinquain was written with both syllabics and stresses in mind, and this one only follows the pattern of stresses. (One stressed syllable in the first line; two stresses in the second; three; four; and then one again.)

The "echo" referenced in the poem -- this is probably obvious to those who wear tefillin, but perhaps less so to those who have never tried the practice -- is the winding mark left on my arm by the tefillin straps, which fades over the course of half an hour or so. Speaking of which, there's a new tefillin category on this blog; if you're interested in posts having to do with tefillin, click on the "tefillin" link in the category cloud in the sidebar, or click here.

Shabbat shalom!