Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt,
for there I will make you into a great nation.
Genesis 45:3
I don’t like change.
I’m even afraid of the next lines of this poem
because they’re uncertain.
(Phew, we made it!)
I remember not wanting to go to Hebrew school
as I liked it better before, when I didn’t
have to go anywhere.
(Turns out I didn’t have a choice and
now look at me, writing Jewish poems
every week like a zealot.)
I remember not wanting to move into
a different house because what was the point
of taking all your things and moving them
when they were perfectly fine where they were?
(Now I have a view and pretend wood floors
and open space and a dysfunctional jacuzzi
and rooms to spare.)
I remember deciding not go back to that
familiar place I had gone to every week for
a couple of decades. A paycheck was at stake
and hella personal connections.
(I no longer taste crow every day which
suits my spiritual vegetarianism.)
My friend always tells me about how
a door closing is immediately followed by
one opening.
(You just have to get there quick enough
so flies and raccoons don’t walk in.)
Change is Egypt.
Change is forgetting what comes after Egypt.
Change may take forty years.
You might have to build a pyramid.
You might need to pack up your things
a number of times.
Do not turn this thing right around.
You are going exactly where
you should be going.
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 25 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 “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) 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.
