A poem intended to accompany Modeh/Modah Ani.
In this Beginning
I awaken
like a woman who,
after working late,
waited out a tornado warning
in her office
overnight.
Though my dreams
were of holding
my children as babies,
I wake with stiff back
and stale fears
half forgotten
in the night’s gusts.
Still,
I spread out my arms
and establish –
my mattress,
my worn bedspread,
the sunspot
where my cat sleeps.
Day, I’ll call this.
Though this world hangs
above a wide abyss,
it is good.
