Blessings are Doled Out – A poem for Parsha Vayechi

He will bless you [with] the blessings of the heavens above…
-Genesis 49:25

The children of Jacob continue to
receive blessings from their dad –

Gad is the one who will have troops
trooping forth from him. He’s the one you
want when the insurrection comes.

Asher will likely open a restaurant and
you’ll want to reserve in advance.
We’re talking multiple Michelin stars.

Naphtali will be doing cosplay as a gazelle.
He’s also a writer, and a good one, so
I’m willing to ignore the whole gazelle thing.

Joseph is charming, to his father,
to all the women, even to his brothers now
after the unpleasantness with the pit.

He’s suffered the most and now has the most.
He kept the rock together
Some say he is the rock.

The blessings he receives come from
even higher than his father’s, father’s father.
They couldn’t come from any higher.

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 26 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 “I Am Not Writing a Book of Poems in Hawaii” (Poems written in Hawaii – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2022) 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.