Smoke – A poem for Parsha Tetzaveh

Aaron must burn incense on it when he kindles the wicks of the lamps in the afternoon—a continual offering of incense before God throughout your generations. ~ Exodus 30:8

When I discovered incense, in the wilds of the
Venice Beach Boardwalk, as a young man in,
probably, the late eighties, I didn’t know

it had something to do with me. It seemed like
an exotic Eastern artifact (I hadn’t yet embraced
my people’s penchant for the East.)

Table after table, in what felt like a million miles
of tables, of expert incense sellers, occasionally
broken up by a booth selling sunglasses –

the product, wrapped in aluminum foil, ready for me
to take my shekels and send me home to discover
my inner priestly class. My mother was a Cohen.

So, for all I know, Aaron had been waiting for me
to come along this whole time. I brought some home
I tried it out, and Judaism is still here –

I must have been doing something right.
Incense is the only smoke I’ll allow in my holy of holies
as my mother spent her life retreating from civilization

in a cloud of tobacco. She had no idea she came from
the foot of the mountain, that her ancestor
was the chief holy operator. At least she

didn’t know to word it like that. She had her suspicions.
We wrote them off as paranoia and proceeded to
live our lives with one eye towards sadness

and the other towards the world yet to come.
I just want to make a pleasing fragrance for the Lord.
I remember that phrase from somewhere else.

There’s so much I remember, from my own physical life,
from generations before my feet touched this ground.
So much of it, gone up in smoke.

Rick Lupert, a poet, songleader and graphic designer, is the author of 28 books including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion.” Visit him at www.JewishPoetry.net