Ephod for Thought – a poem for Torah portion Tetzaveh

Thus shall Aaron carry the names of the sons of Israel
in the choshen of judgment over his heart

Imagine if we commemorated the ones who
came before us by wearing their possessions.
We could start with our mother’s ring and
our father’s hat. Our grandfather’s pocket watch
trailing out of his wife’s handbag.

Our great grandparents’ monocles and snuff boxes.
Boat tickets collaged to old country vests.
Unidentifiable things long since out of fashion
hanging out of our pockets begging us to
search for fingerprints.

Generations of history visible as we fill up
out tanks and squeeze avocados at the market.
They’d see our story on every corner of our person.
And the weight alone of all these old things would
never let us forget who they were.

It doesn’t matter if they bring us joy –
These are the keepsakes of personal history.
Like Aaron, a stone for each of Jacob’s children
adorning his breastplate of judgement.
Every item was of judgement back then.

We are a time capsule of the D.N.A that
preceded us. The new things we buy, merely
an adornment for a future descendent.
We don’t judge – simply move from place to place
wearing our past like pure gold.

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.