Elul Day 17

Dear Elul Writers,

In his poem, How to Continue Loving the World Despite Years of Impediment, the poet Marcus Wicker shares themes that resonated deeply with our exploration of the sounds of the shofar. We arrive at the sound of teruah with its broken, alarming call.  The sound is meant to help us look within, gather our losses, gather our heartbreak, gather our darkness.

How to Continue Loving the World Despite Years of Impediment

      Gather your losses, oblong

& indiscriminate: avocado rot,

      football, cracked soap dish;

dropped eggshells, embryo

      gone. Gather mutilated joy.

Smelted promises. Aloft,

      here & now. In open air.

Gather your heartbreak, wind-

      ing & windowless. Animal

the shadow, lurking

      at the edges

of your mouth.

      Needle into a nest

your intricate sorrows.

      Roost there. Gather

yourself. In a clearing—

      Or gather your losses

like twin sheets, stripped

      from a sick child’s bed.

I know I know it’s difficult

      to face it alone.

To know you must

      gather your darkness

or lose yourself to the animal

      that thrives therein. To vanquish

your losses in daylight,

      gather your life

by the scruff. Hold on

      to what you can.

Tekiah-Shevarim-Teruah-Tekiah 

Prompt

On Day 17 of the month, we return to the sounds of the shofar, and the corresponding journey of teshuvah. With the staccato call of teruah, we call to mind the places where we are still in pieces. I encourage you to look back on your year and find a moment of feeling broken or ashamed. Maybe there is a definitive experience that will come to mind or perhaps you will need to search for it. In the moment, did becoming whole again even feel like a possibility? Does it feel possible yet? How might making an intricate nest of our sorrows and roosting there, help us prepare for fullness in the new year?

Shavua tov,

Jordan