Echoes of Jewishness

For me, I carry the echoes of the people, the traditions, the language.

Show me hebrew letters with grammar and I can sputter a sound.

Show me the rabbi and let me overhear a Yiddish word, a blessing,

that laughter and tone.

I carry the gesture of resonance, a leaning in with that honesty of “my” people,

a pride when it comes to questioning all that befalls us,

a yearning when it comes to obtaining a sense of reverence for life itself.

I carry that loudness of being, and bluntness of expression,

that Larry David way of not letting things go.

Echoes sometimes ripple into constellations of not enough-ness,

of envy, of longing, of this nurturing question of where do I belong,

because it’s not in the swaying of the songs as we gather in groups.

I have always been alone, watching. I am the keeper of stories I cannot credit others with, but that have everything to do with what they have said.

I am a crucible, a cauldron, a pelvis, a bowl, I sway.

Maybe one day I will know that loss does not imply something needs to fill the space.

Maybe I will dance with Her.

Maybe I will laugh.

Maybe I will always know that embedded in my very being, there is an eternal flame,

that maybe I am my ancestor’s echo, and that that is enough.