SECRET NAME


No one knows the name I was given
by the one who taught me Torah
in my mother's womb. The tap
on my philtrum hid it from me
along with the mysteries of splendor
the secret of mixing fire and water
the spiced air of Eden.

When this deployment is through
and I stand before the Throne
I will not be asked
why I was not Zusya
but did the names I earned
live up to my very first name
which only the angels can speak?

Turning again to Luisa A. Igloria's poetry prompts, I accepted the one for the 21st: Write a poem about your secret name(s).

There's a midrash which holds that an angel teaches each of us all the Torah in the world while we are in the womb, but when we are born, a tap beneath the nose / above the lip makes us forget.

Re: "why I was not Zusya," if you don't know the Hasidic story about Rabbi Zusya on his deathbed, go and read -- it is wonderful.