A Tale of Two Sticks – A Poem for Haftarah Vayigash by Rick Lupert

I’ll never look at two sticks the same
(come to think of it, I never spent a lot of time
looking at sticks so I’m not sure

how significant a statement that is)
after God told Ezekiel to pick up two of them
and then assigned them meanings.

One for the north and
one for the south. A divided kingdom
fused together into one

by an act of holy arts and crafts.
Makes me think of other divisions –
Other lefts and rights which

are still housed within lands
united by one name. Liberals and
conservatives. East coast

and west. Presidents and
those who just use the word “president.”
We need a divine influence to

graft us together, plant us in the ground
maybe add a little water so just
one tree grows.

We all get to be a leaf
nourished from the same place.
Let us be an evergreen

Let us breathe.

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 21 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur: Shabbat Evening“,  “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.