Leaving the Page
May 2009 • Sivan, 5769 www.kolotchayeinu.org congregation kolot chayeinu • • voices of our lives Leaving the Page EDDY EHRLICH I’ve got my siddur. check. lift, blow, choke, I’ve turned to the announced or sigh page. check. they do sharpen If I read the page, they can move I’m reciting. they might rise When I examine the text, I’m and maybe maybe even fly from studying. my mouth, my bowstring, my If I listen to the cantor lead, I heart. am audience. and I will have become pray-er. When I join in with the congre- gation, I am an arch-er who with will I am singing. and with spirit But praying? loads an arrow What to do?….What to do? and aims for myself, for pray-er. I am an arch-er and my bow floats BARUCH blah blah blah la la before me. la UNIVERSE oy la la blah oy This prayerbook is a quiver but blah SHALOM la blah blah its pages are dull arrows. They AMEN are not yet mine. Elijah the Prophet being fed by ravens from "Descriptive catalogue of a collection of objects of Jewish ceremonial Objects" I must taste a word touch a note borrowed from my neighbor in this issue and rip that page with my teeth to own them and their succulent Leaving the Page ............................. 1 Why I Stopped Praying and marrow From the Rabbi ................................ 2 Started Again ................................. 10 And when with them, Tachlit ............................................... 3 Blackbirds ...................................... 11 I lick, stir, pinch, Sincerity ........................................... 4 Traveling Man ................................. 12 twist, stroke, suck, ‘We Shall Do and We Shall Hear’ Why I Don’t Pray ............................
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