Chayei Sarah: A Glimpse

This is not a poem about Sarah
This is not her life story
This is not her eulogy

Sarah is not here

This is a story about men
About men who don’t know how to reconcile
About men who know how to be followers of God but not good husbands or fathers
Or sons 
          Or brothers
This is a story about men who 
          cling 
to a god but are estranged from one another;
who have much to say to a god they cannot see 
but have not words for their own kin
          Silence hangs heavy throughout these wordy tales

This is a story of business transactions:
land purchased, bride purchased,
so all must be well!

This is a story of men
This is a poem of outrage
This is a eulogy to a world that never existed
          Where women come first
          Where love comes first
          Where family comes first

Sometimes we can create a tiny bit of that world
together
and glimpse the Paradise it should be;
the Garden we have lost

But as a human family we fail
and fail
and fail again

We are better at burying our dead than we are at learning how to live
          together
          and yet
At the end, the estranged brothers come together
          (momentarily at least)
to bury their father
                    Broken 
                    pieces coming together
A glimpse at what the world would be
if we could only make it 
whole.

EKG’19