KNOW (ELUL 5)


It's time to wake up.
The shofar is sounding.
This is real:
open your eyes.

The shofar is sounding
a call to remember.
Open your eyes.
Who have you become?

A call to remember
you could have been kinder.
Who have you become
since last we gathered?

You could have been kinder.
Don't take it too hard:
since last we gathered
no one's been perfect.

Don't take it too hard.
You're loved anyway.
No one's been perfect.
The leaves are turning.

You're loved anyway.
The moon waxes brighter.
The leaves are turning.
Where are your loose ends?

The moon waxes brighter
as the work grows more urgent.
Where are your loose ends?
We all have the same heart.

As the work grows more urgent
where is your mind torn?
We all have the same heart.
God's door is open.

Where is your mind torn?
This is real.
God's door is open.
It's time to wake up.

Many of the ideas in this poem are drawn from Rabbi Alan Lew's This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, which I slowly re-read every year at this season.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) You can read last year's and this year's #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; last year's posts are also available, lightly revised, in the print chapbook Elul Reflections.