the prophets' boutique [a #poem]
© rabbi menachem creditor
walk with me
through downtown Jerusalem
this Friday afternoon
see through these wide, crying eyes
the miraculous art
of Ben Gurion's dreams:
Hebrew lotto signs
ever-present Jewish cranes
King George's great synagogue
(though the truly great ones
never need to say so)
can't take one step
not even one
without noticing it all
manhole covers and exquisite flowers
spikey signs and rabbinic schwarma
overwhelm me
years ago, I sat right here
soldiers and Pre-Shabbat shoppers
passing by (maybe the same ones!)
I wept then and weep now
over their very existence
each of them a treasure.
(three Israeli girls just asked two chabadniks if they could put on tefilin. that's new.)
King David could have never imagined
the prophets' boutique
he founded.
I just can't stop seeing
can barely imagine blinking
I'd miss something
These broken stones feel somehow stable beneath my feet. They're always shifting, always slightly unstable, but today, right now, holy ground holds and grounds me.
It's just so good to be home.
