An Absence of Water.
Atonement and drought are absent of water. Things that are present with me this Yom Kippur are also connected observing an absence of water.
I only fasted one Yom Kippur. It was 2006. I was in Guatemala and my brother was deployed in Iraq.
I considered, tried, failed to fast on other Yom Kippurs as a means to feel connected across distance.
The novel I am currently writing is about an imbalance in the world's water, our water.
The novel I am currently writing believes that connection builds and replenishes itself in a cycle, like water.
I decided that the dates of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hispanic Heritage Month was the depth of intersection I needed to return to edit this novel.
For my post this year, I offer drops of poetry and water.
Words scratch and mark
With ink
With blood
I wanted to dissolve
Marks, lines,
I burned the ink
Bled the water
I evaporated salt to
Marks, lines.
You keep scratching your scars
To change the color
To lessen the itch
Don’t you understand their rash is redder
Than canyons
Darker
Than storms
Longer than roots which
Survive droughts
Cracked in stone
I only ask for balance.
Not time,
Split.
Instead, they keep their balance.
And time,
Split.
Until the voices are thick with too many,
Ways to count,
Mistakes and right,
Years and sons,
Dark and light.
Tensions break.
Scars mark.
Battles in our bones.
History on our skin.
But, the water comes.
It comes.
It pours.
Water carries everything
Water is carried by everything
The skins of the dead
And the rind of the living
It washes.
It births.
It lives even when
There
Is
No
Life
Voices cut
And deafen
Water drowns noise.
Water smooths all edges.
It blankets the earth
It speaks to the stars
Water fills all hollow spaces.
Salt.
Water evaporated
Stone.
Marks a promise
To return
Leaving a dry grave
Full of stones.
Why does water run away?
Cut into rock
Drown breath
And even cling
To dirt
When it’s already in the sky.
Clouds, like bodies, are dirt and water.
They circle souls through the world.
Storms are only
One path for water
One path for love
Neither are ends.
Cycles weave
Through hearts and stone
To cut, to burst, to cleanse.
The name for Heaven is
Water
Has always been
Water.
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