On Rosh Hashana it is inscribed
On Yom Kippur it is sealed…
At 85 how those works resonate.
Will I live to pray on another Yom
Kippur? Some by plague, it says
of the deaths coming this year.
A plague never was real to me
before now. Fire devours more
lives. I live in fear of it, while
drought kills frogs and trees.
Death has taken so many.
How can I not expect I may
be among them? I make what
amends I can. An isolated
solemnity weighs upon me all
this day without rabbi or cantor.
I speak sacred words into silence.
A Jew alone is incomplete.