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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000041.txt from 2005/10

From: Oboeeee@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] Quote of the Day...A Tribute to the Shofar
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:12:31 -0400

Atonement Songs=20
=20
The wild sound of the shofar=20
pierces my skin and opens my heart. =20
And I=E2=80=99m wild for tunes in a minor key=20
that vibrate my tailbone and belly =20
and echo out across a synagogue packed=20
with doubters and believers =20
who come together in whiteness=20
one day of the year to hear=20
archaic bizzare legal formulas and prayers.=20
Sexist, racist, but still...=20
Dressed up in sounds they open our path.=20
Just for that moment in our fasting, light-headedness,=20
open us to rich tones=E2=80=94=20
Simple melodies that convey truths or fictions=20
about our fate.=20
We have free choice, but yet=20
our fate is sealed this Wednesday night at sundown.=20

I=E2=80=99m wild about the sun going down and I=E2=80=99m starving and=20
the gates of heaven are closing=20
and there=E2=80=99s just few minutes.=20
Wait, don=E2=80=99t close.=20
Wait for my prayer. I=E2=80=99ll be better.=20
Forgive me. Next year. Wait.=20
Reduced to childlike quaking, we sing incantations=20
from an earlier time:=20
three times Baruch Shem =20
seven times Adonai Hu Elohim and then,=20
and then the piercing longed for =20
wail of pain blown up to the heavens=20
it=E2=80=99s getting dark, and=20
seven Amens.=20
=20
=20
-Judith Rafaela, "Another Desert: Jewish Poetry of New Mexico"=20
Jewish American poet
Santa Fe, New Mexico
=20

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