Currently Browsing: Bruce Black 11 articles
When Passover Ends
Passover ended last night but this morning there’s still a lump of matzah in my stomach and the taste of dry matzah crumbs on my lips It’s like when I leave the beach and come home to find grains of sand stuck between my toes and dried salt from the sea on my legs You […]
The day before Passover
It’s the day before Passover and we’re preparing to flee Egypt again to leave behind all the tasks we never got around to doing to bid goodbye to old habits and routines that won’t take us anywhere but back to where we started to say farewell to the people who enslaved us and treated us […]
Cleaning for Pesach
Cleaning the kitchen for Pesach yesterday I heard the voices of my loved ones who are gone but whose memories live on and return to keep me company. I kneeled to scrub the inside of the oven and suddenly could smell the chicken soup and matzah balls that my grandmother used to make in her […]
After I’m Gone
When I die, let death come without pain. Let flowers and birds weep and sing a sad lament. Let Heaven open and soak the earth with rain. But, please, let there be no pain. Just the gentle kiss of a loved one’s lips on my cheek. The whisper of goodbye, the touch of a hand […]
Prayer never ends
Prayer never ends. It’s like the sea and the sky, like an endless field or a song that never dies, like words that echo in the mouth of a canyon long after they’re spoken, like a heart filled to the brim with love, overflowing with love, spilling over the edge of a cliff, like an […]
Be Brave
A new poem by Bruce Black. I hear You say be brave as the day begins and an unknown path stretches ahead of me. Or maybe it’s the voice of my father that I hear calling to me from the other side, from the olam habah, encouraging me to stand up to doubts and fears, […]
A dream of light
A new poem by Bruce Black. Let there be light, You said in the long-ago time when You were creating the world, and there was light. Let there be the sky and the sea, You said, and out of nothingness You formed the heavens and the deep. You breathed and birds spread their wings and […]
Stamp of Approval
In the third of three poems, Bruce Black reflects on prayer. Do prayers receive a stamp of approval when they arrive in heaven? Maybe there’s an angel sitting at a desk reading each prayer, deciding which one gets passed on to God and which gets dismissed—tossed into the wastebasket to be shredded later— while those […]
Yizkor
In the second of three poems, Bruce Black reflects on Jewish prayer. Under the folds of my prayer shawl that I drape over my head before beginning to pray, I greet my parents, my grandparents, my uncles and aunts, imagining each embracing me again, holding me in their arms. Under the folds of my prayer […]
Where Prayer Comes From
Prayer comes from a hidden reservoir deep within the heart, and words flow at times like a river in flood. The mystery is that you can pray at all, that your lips can form words, that you can find a way to reach out to God even if you question God’s existence and doubt anyone […]