My past has faded away into nothing
Leaving shreds of longing.
The sea.
The sound of the waves.
My mother’s voice
The feel of my sister’s hair as she slept,
her head in my lap.
Our last journey.
Finally room to lie down.
But at what cost?
At what cost.
And so we travel on,
Passive now.
Nothing left to do or prepare for.
Shreds of thought.
Regrets.
Hopes.
Fears.
In the end only fears.
Our past fades away,
Gone with our past,
Our clothes,
Our hair.
Our names.
We face the future naked even of our names.
We feel the hand of God, nameless and past-less.
Now there is something to do and prepare for.
I have faced it again.
Worn my name as a garment,
Unworn.
Unsullied.
Un-earned.
Sat in the company of the learned and righteous,
To know how little I belong.
Spent the Day of Atonement in the company of my childhood,
To know the atonement I lost.
But the song!
The song of my past echoes forever in my being.
Let me fade away into nothingness,
And let the shreds of my soul become song,
The piyutim of Yom Kippur in Saloniki.
