A Poem on Forgiveness – Parashat Vayeshev

I can’t stop the dreams

That come in the night,

For even while awake

I’m gazing towards light.

My mother died,

My father sighed,

And he wondered

What will become of me

And my dreams?

Trusting a man along the way

I found my brothers lying in wait

To banish me from the clan

And send me away.

They could not utter aloud

Even my name,

And, casting me into a pit

They spat me away

And broke my father’s heart.

My name had been written with stars –

But I became a slave

And as flesh in a woman’s heart.

Her master, incensed

Sent me to Sheol,

But still a seer

I glimpsed a glow

And blessings bubbled

Into my dreams.

Alas, I was given reprieve,

Restored to the King,

And I served him faithfully

With shaven head, an Egyptian name,

Secure at his right hand.

There, alone, my heart hardened,

I trusted no one,

Neither man nor angel,

But I dreamed my dreams

And waited for redemption.

My brothers came,

Their faces forlorn,

Begging for bread

Before the throne,

Thinking me Viceroy,

With scepter in hand,

Not as Joseph

From their clan.

My heart had shut down

For twenty odd years

My love blown away

In cold desert tears.

As my father re-dug his father’s old wells,

Seeing my brothers

I recalled where I dwelt,

And water seeped up

Into my steeped-up heart,

To open me to love again.

I forgave them

And brought them near,

And saved them

from their fears,

As God intended

all these years.