Words are All We’ve Got: A Poem for Torah Portion Eikev

Beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God…
…who fed you manna in the desert

I think this is what Joni Mitchell had in mind
when she reminded us about what is gone.

We’ve got so much manna in our bellies
our spouses are starting to hint to us about exercise.

We can see the other side of the river and
barely remember the scorpion sting behind us.

They say there are tall people to conquer and
as one who can barely see the sky let alone

touch it, I’m concerned. (Lower your head signs
always make me laugh.)

There are other gods, tempting us with lights
and never-ending bingeable story arcs.

Bingeable is such a new word, not all the
spell-checkers believe in it yet.

Though there are some, many even, who have
yet to jump on board with these ancient words.

It takes a belief in words to set you up to
cross the river. To see over the heads of giants.

Appearances of the actual, Holy Fire stop
once we get to the other side.

Leaving us with just the words and
a memory longer than our lives.

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.