Final Destination: Jacob – A poem for Parsha Vayechi (Aliyah 1) by Rick Lupert

I will lie with my forefathers, and you shall carry me

out of Egypt, and you shall bury me in their grave.

The last choice we get to make
is where they will lay our bones.
After a lifetime of decisions –
Lefts versus rights, which brands of
major appliances to buy, ups versus downs,
skinny jeans or boot cut, vegetarian
versus carnivore, whose hand to shake,
whose soul to commingle with.
We write it all down in a final document
or, like Jacob did, tell it to our son –
the final, implied, verbal contract.
We can only hope, when we become
non-speaking dust, those entrusted
with what’s left of us, honor our choices,
bring us home to where we brought
our mothers and fathers, and mark
the location so the living will
never forget what we did.

Then Israel saw Joseph’s sons,
and he said, “Who are these?”

Jacob, on his death bed
sits up like a lion
with the strength of a star
like the father of all grains of sand.
His grandchildren before him
like they are the sand.
He sees the future in their eyes.
Or more importantly that
there is a future.
A sea will open up.
A desert will be wandered.
Armies defeated.
A river crossed.
And more begetting than
would be polite to mention.
The promise will come true –
We’ll run out of stars to match
these young eyes.
On the verge of the forever sleep
his eyes about to close, knowing
his name will live on.

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 “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.