
Yom Kippur, 2012
Don Hynes
When inspiration fails
the clock ticks and walls echo,
music won’t play, voices annoy,
bones ache, fissures open
and the Earth groans;
habitual and rigid
yet afraid of this brittleness
I look to dreams and find confusion.
On this day of atonement
something old must pass away
for the new and vital to reappear.
Will I leave with the tide
or find strength in the wave?
I take inventory and forgive
following the way of Yom Kippur,
fasting from inner noise,
freeing the goat of retribution.
I go alone to the altar,
connecting to the deeper voice
as what must go is allowed to pass.
I descend and I raise up;
the color green astounds me.
I bring gifts to the space
that keeps us apart
saying Amen to this moment,
to the sounds of life stirring
and enter the garden
as if for the very first time.
http://donhynes.com/blog/?p=1052