STRANGER


he doesn't meet my glance, the man
whose tallit is draped like wings

on his way to morning prayer
on my first day back

when I walk round-eyed
into the old neighborhood, greeting

the grandkittens of the feral cats
the three-year-old used to feed

these limestone buildings
are my minyan, witnessing

my murmured prayer of gratitude
for years of absence, and for return

Today's poem was written to a prompt at 3030 poetry -- "faces in the street." It comes out of the experience of waking early, my first morning in Jerusalem, and going for a walk to my old street before breakfast. I love seeing people walking to Shabbat morning prayer with their tallitot flying behind them in the breeze. That never happens where I live, so it's a sight I associate entirely with Jerusalem. I struggled a bit to find the right title for this poem, and settled on "stranger" -- hoping it would reflect both the man in the poem, and the narrator of the poem, which is to say, me.