May 22, '13     

                                 Standing at the Mountain

        I'm standing in my stroller seven months old
        On the boardwalk of Atlantic City -
        Small and timeless I am, as I hold the handlebars
        And look at the world with an infant's pure simplicity.
        I think we stood at Sinai in such a stance -
        (Newborn nation - nation of newborns) -
        G-d restored us to our primal innocence,
        And with fatherly love called us His firstborn.
        Nothing has ever changed that fact -
        Though twice exiled from our land,
        Our core-essence remains intact:
        The nation who said: We will do and then understand.
        We're told full restoration of our souls is in reach -
        So I keep hold - deep within, waiting to be redeemed,
                                                is the baby on the beach.

                    

   May 8, ,13



                                   Fear Only One

        Nothing in school scared me more than math -
        Multiplication was a monster I could tame -
        I knew its tables and charts by name -
        Fractions were the numerical nightmare in my path.
        Then came problems - (if Frank has three and John nine) -
        On my terrifying list ranked a close second -
        The very sight of them froze my ability to reckon -
        My arrested skill never unfroze with time.
        So great was my fear of a failing grade -
        Once, when teacher went out for a quick meeting,
        I left my seat and asked a friend for aid -
        The closest I ever came to cheating.
        Oh little scholar who dreaded math -
        Subtract all your fears and leave only one:
                           the fear of divine wrath.

                      May 1, '13

                               L'ag B'Omer - Beauty Within Beauty

            
                 I always thought a single rose,
                 White or red - in a fluted vase
                 Was the height of beauty.  One never knows -
                 It turns out two or more colors is what stays.
                 Viewed in a homiletic way,
                 Qualities that are compounds and blends
                 Relate one to another - interplay.
                 Admixture of color towards harmony tends.
                 Even in the actual flower that grows -
                 I have to stand as one corrected -
                 I saw how loveliness was perfected
                 In the slight-pink petals of the all-white rose.
                 Beauty - unlike the single red flower - is not exclusive,
                 But like the heavenly spheres distinct but inter-inclusive.