Towards a Progressive neo-Hasidism
I fell off the practice of praise & prayer, pray for me
I’m now in need of prayer, pray for me.
Far from cobblestone streets, my minarets here are trees
my muezzin, the low moan of doves, pray for me.
The pileated woodpecker knocking on metal
in her synagogue behind the barn prays for me.
The wetland teeming with voices uplifted in praise,
insects & amphibians tending the work of life, pray for me.
Last season’s phragmites in prayer circle nod their
feathered heads, praying for me.
I forfeited my one-on-ones in the woods with You
in face of disaster I count on Nakhman to meditate, in prayer for me.
Today’s psalm, #113 on my Tehillim app, opens the Hallel
a song, hallelujah, Diana Krall plays for me.
I light a 24-hour candle for my mother in this farmhouse
far from home & her flame flickers, prays for me.
Called on to sing in couplets, Hafez’s “string of Pearls”
I am quick to ask my sister to please, please pray for me.
Pearl Abraham
Pearl Abraham is the author of four novels, most recently, American Taliban and The Seventh Beggar (Koret Int’l, shortlist). Essays, stories and reviews have appeared in various publications. Animal Voices/Mineral Hum, a collection of stories in progress, was shortlisted for the 2018 McCarthy Prize. Recent work can be read on Judith, Air/Light, Oberon, Of the Book, Amethyst Review, RitualWell, Voices Israel. Her translation from Yiddish of a Rokhl Korn poem, “Ikh volt gevolt amul deyn mamen zen,” along with her own Mother’s Day poem appeared on In geveb, and Yankev Glatshteyn’s “Fraynt” in translation is forthcoming. Emeritus Professor since 2022, Abraham founded and directed an MFA in Fiction and edited the sentence craft webpage, S.
