LOVE (ELUL 23)


Four tiny books in a printed cardboard box.
A handprint, undated—maybe he was two?

An autograph-keeper with faded pages
inscribed in spidery curlicues of Czech.

The onesie and pants and booties we chose
for the cautious drive home from the hospital.

Silver posy of dried wedding lilies
tucked into the cup I carried by hand

from Karlovy Vary. I save these talismans
behind sliding glass as though they were portals

to voices I'll never hear again, hands
small and hot or soft and wrinkled in mine.

How does God bear the accumulation of memory?
Lives superimposed in time-lapse photographs.

Our bridges, skyscrapers, symphonies, sculptures
like the fingerpainted art my son brings home.

And when we're gone does God leaf slowly
through the still frames of our remembered lives

amazed that no matter how many souls we are
there's always room for more love?

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.