Tisha B'Av (August 3rd, 2025)
There is nothing other than this
molten mass of iron we call life.
Mostly though we only hear the hiss
and crackle when it plunges and cools. A black knife
is raised up under the stars like a sacrament.
We pray to our creation, hoping that it will save us
from a return to that white hot orb
of which we were born. The ancients spoke of dust
and ashes—but our origins are even more without form
than we could ever imagine possible.
Still, the knife's smooth tempered sides and delicate edge
are as tempting to worship as a young god
who emerges out from under the rubble. Under a constellation we pledge
to never go back, and we sow the wet sod
with corn and wheat and barley that promise us interest.
We bury the blade along with the seeds,
hoping that the harvest will rise with stalks like steel spears
and we will never again hunger, or bleed,
or change as the constellations pass by the years.
This we celebrate as a holiday while we sit on our hands.
Much time passes, and many knives are forged and planted,
keeping us alive through a thousand new moons—
and happy too—though deep down all of them have rusted away. Granted,
we never see their breakdown, but what is true
is too painful to bear.