Get Ready – A poem for parsha Nitzavim

You are all standing this day before the Lord…

A final plea
The death speech
Everything important
laid on the table

Imagine what you’d say
if you knew this was
your last day.

That’s what’s being said
in front of all the people
and the One you might
only imagine.

Act as if everyone
deserves a capital letter
in front of their name

Even the people who
cut the wood and draw
the water.

Every one could be the One.

Are you nitzavim?
Are you on your feet?
Are you ready?

You’d better be.

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 23 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 “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) 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.