Yom Kippur 5759

by Richard Chess

My groaning serves as my bread.
My rising serves as my falling.

I have floated all year.  I have
feasted and rested while the wind

fluttered the sleeves of the thin
and the moon lifted the faces

of the pale who sounded
their hollow O above my dream.

Now my trembling serves as my grooming:
I groom for an audience with you.

My listening serves as my calling,
my reply to you as my contrition:

Here am I.  Here am I.

My turning serves as my awakening,
my turning of pages, of pages:

surely you will pass by, the shadow
of your wrath will glide

over the curled boy
without troubling his wakeful reading.

My searching serves as my roaring.
It pours forth as water, it cascades.

I bend inside my rebelling (my way
of knowing) and stand inside my pleading:

Lord, grant me this,
this cold yearning, this burning vow:

Let me live to serve.

Even as the green outside is slowing,
my standing serves as my going.

–Read at St. Lydia’s on October 9