Passover’s coming and we’re
going to need to take a shower.
You can’t show up to your in-laws
smelling like sheep. And this
is all coming directly from the One
in a rare direct address to the us.
The us who have been scattered
among the nations. The us who
use profanity like it’s reverse food.
The us who are coming around to a
sanctification. The us who are going
to get to see the old neighborhood soon.
The us who are going to get a sprinkling
of clean water. The us who are going
to get hearts of flesh, which
begs the question, what are they
of now? Was it stone? How did our
blood get anywhere if it was stone?
The trees we’ll benefit from –
you’ve never seen so much fruit.
Our crumpled buildings, risen again.
We’ve talked about the desert blooming
but, really, you won’t be able to see the
sand amidst all the blooms.
The words desolate and famine will
become words we only remember
but never use. Even the corn
is getting a talking to by the only One
who speaks its language. It’s going to
be like Eden up in this.
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.
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