DAY 6 - ROOTS


Plant your feet and burrow rootlets down
through the carpet. Find reservoirs,
water permeating the bed of an ancient sea.

Plant your flag in this moment, claiming here
and now: they are yours to clutch in your fist.
And who planted you? Who shaped the seed, who

guarded its growing? These too are roots:
grandmother who tasted the home she remembered
in sticky apricot kolaches at the county fair,

grandfather who hid his ornate Latin diploma
inside the lining of an overnight bag.
And if your seder bears little resemblance

to the one your father remembers, all Yiddish
and chanted pell-mell, that's okay.
Old rootstock can bear bright new branches

can flower forth in wild profusion
with the etrog fragrance of Eden,
the spicebox scent of Shekhinah.

Today (Friday, until sundown this evening) is the sixth day of the Omer, the sixth day of our forty-nine day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation.

According to the kabbalistic way of marking the days, this is the day of yesod she'b'chesed, the day of rootedness or foundation within the week of lovingkindness.

Today is also the seventh day of Pesach -- the day, according to tradition, when our ancestors crossed through the sea. For more on that, here's a post from a few years ago.