I'm floating and flying high
in my bed against the wall
performing my one may show
in the light and the shadows

and then I dream that I'm from
an African tribe, in Kenya, and
amidst the dancing crowd my
mother awaits to embrace me

joyously engulfing me in love,
she steps back, to see a pale
rail thin, little Jewish boy from
Queens, New York, USA, and

I awaken and question home.

May...

The Medrash on Shir HaShirim (5:2) says that if we open an opening for G-d the size of the eye of a needle then G-d will make it into the opening the size of a hall. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of The Kotel asks why the metaphors aren't parallel. The contrast to an opening the large size of a celebration hall should be an opening the size of a small mouse hole. He notes that the image of a needle is evoked because the eye of a needle is where a thread is threaded so that it can sew. And sewing is a form of connecting. There is, perhaps, an allusion to here that we have to not just be open, but be open to connection (to G-d, our self, others) and then G-d will take that connection and work with it, enlarge it. A sincere, real friend who I admire shared this quote today. And her sharing and the back and forth that followed got me thinking.

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May-

G-d bless those who are down with dark world views
G-d bless the empaths and the narcissists too,

G-d bless the sharp tongued; the rubber and the glue
G-d bless the judgers, including me and you

G-d bless the stories that we tell inside our heads
G-d bless us to connect our needles to His thread

Draft

3:47 AM I type, feeling off right, my nine ounce plastic cup bubbling over with Airborne and Umccka, oregano oil and Emergen-C. Thought maybe I'd sleep through the night, but woke up finding myself wrong.  The kettle is on, the salt and cayenne ready to mix with the boiling water, soon to meet my throat.  Chewed some sombucal and a Coldeze QuickMelt.

A friend said I can manage my money.  Another friend corrected that I'd rather use the time to write.  Up now, approaching the legit magical middle of night hour of 4, I want to be healthy enough to write. Money is nice, but it doesn't pay the poems.