On the morning of Erev Rosh HaShanah, I came out to Fire Island, where I have been leading services for the last 22 years. Even though our services are on-line this years, I still wanted to be in the place where the congregation is based. Being here in this physical place for the High Holy Days every year is part of my own personal introspection and reflection practice of the holy days. Without an in-person congregation to interact with, to my surprise and delight I found a congregation in the natural beauty of this unique landscape. One part of my personal practice for many years has been to write a High Holy Day poem, and here is this year’s.
High Holy Days in the Pines, 2020
A congregation of sea-oats rustle and sway,
bowing to the rising moon.
Amen, amen they whisper, a wafting of supplication.
The wind roars across the sky and
whitecaps scatter their greetings across the bay.
Like us, the birds have not yet
departed this island for the winter
and in this twilight they sing, full-throttled and eager
to fill the empty spaces between us
in this strange year of distance,
comforting us with their eternal chant.
The pine trees show off fresh growth,
their bright, exuberant boughs
stretching out with faded tips.
If only it was this easy for us to demarcate
our old ways from the new.
The still-open gates stand ready to allow us entry.
This season beckons us to unscroll,
to shed the brittle membranes of last year’s self.
Come, let us slough off the unrealized and unfulfilled,
the unloved and the unresolved.
Let us become undone
in order to start anew.
