take me out to the movies

in the light of the past
everything is illuminated

they say that my neshama
floated like a dandelion bloom,
up on the winds of history
from the tombs made of
earth and pine

dreams of another land,
stories that I haven’t read,
lives filled with the joys pains sorrows,
lived in some eastern European cloister,
before being scattered by chaos

I embarrassed to feel a sting in my eyes, tightening of my throat and
realize that my “story” has had some revisionist editing to fit;
my memories molded to fit the uncertainties of my present.
jewishness conveyed by mysticism has always bothered me.
today, however, I pray with memories not my own.

in the light of the past
everything is illuminated