Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group.

Temple

The rabbi wore faded jeans,
his yarmulke a slightly askew halo.
He played guitar during the service
in the dusty room where Sabbath celebrations took place
homemade rugelach and hamantaschen offered on elaborate plates.

This unlikely rabbi
sang peppy call-and-response Hebrew songs.
When the whimsical service was over
he poured shots of whiskey.

It was all unorthodox.

Our dad was dead.

We didn’t know what else to do
so we gathered at the Temple,
though we hadn’t been
there in decades.
How different it was.

The Temple doors were made for giants
but we were ushered in the back way
like we were going to a speakeasy.
Bullets from the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting
echoed here in New Jersey.

We didn’t sing the Mourner’s Kaddish
in the main body of the Temple that day
where I had mumbled my Bat Mitzvah Haftarah,
the cantor with halitosis standing near me
whispering the Hebrew words I couldn’t remember (most of them).

That solid old Temple with his strong Torah heartbeat
remained empty that day and we were relegated to the unadorned back room.

My father would have been amused by the exuberant rabbi.

“L’chaim, Dad. To life.”
The rabbi’s whiskey,
thrilling and incongruous in Temple,
lifted my spirit.

I almost forgot sorrow.

They’re going to knock down that old Temple –
very few honor their ghosts there anymore.
Our grandparents bought their house on the same street
to walk to Shabbat services after lighting the candles.
Our great-grandparents, milliners forced to flee Austria, walked with them.
Their names and thousands of others etched into the Temple walls
will soon be dust.

We walk to the Raritan River
let the currents take the ashes and carry our ancestors
past the closing of our father’s Temple doors.

We build invisible Temples, etched with sacred and holy
stories and memories, ancestors and traditions
and an unorthodox rabbi, uplifting with songs and shots of whiskey.

Alison Ersfeld

~ ~ ~ ~

Crepe Myrtle

The crepe myrtle is blooming here-
I doubt yours is.

You were an impetuous planter.
No attention to detail.
Flowers didn’t flourish outside your home.
One thin magenta wisp at the top of the crepe myrtle,
Headless marigolds,
Lantana disappeared overnight like ghosts,
Petunias perished in the peak of their performance.

And the crooked bricks you laid for the tulip garden
were thrust out of their shallow trenches
by boisterous tree roots.

Still you planted.
Watered.
Tried.

You,
A wild sunflower field
Bright in the late Autumn sun.
Happy in lightning,
In drought,
In scorching heat.

Just happy
Like a big-faced full moon
Enfolding me in your moonbeams
When the crepe myrtle blooms verdant and vibrant here.

Alison Ersfeld

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alison teaches English, creative writing, and mythology, at Meadowdale High School where she works collaboratively with students to publish the school’s art and literary magazine. She is a board member of EPIC Group Writers.

Published work: Unmasked Magazine, EPIC Group Writers 2018 Contest winner (second place-poetry); Poet’s Corner – My Edmonds News