Tkhine for the Shattering of Vessels 

“from here on in, consider what a mouth can’t utter, and what the ear can’t hear…” – from Sefer Yetzirah 

Beloved water body, 

I am grieving the stillness 

of your inky blue light, 

everything swirls around 

a dark center, a seed, a name, 

a river buried deep 

under bedrock. I am grieving 

this porous body, torn 

from its reflection. There 

is a silence shattering inside 

my throat – my skin a husk, 

hardening. Here, at the mouth 

of a hurried river, I pick 

up stones, shells, yellowed 

teeth. There are forty 

two letters on the tip of 

my tongue. There are crickets, 

faint red leaves, icy 

webs, crushed acorns, footsteps 

swollen in mud. Here, 

at midnight, the sun 

is a cavity and I am on my 

knees. Beloved, there is no light 

without the absence of light. 

Tkhine for the Repair of Vessels 

Beloved, on the wide highway that runs between 

Boston and Seattle, a sign reads “moshiach is 

here: just add in goodness and kindness.” I’m 

not so sure of this, I have yet to see the signs 

on my daily walk through the neighborhood, 

all the leaves are dying just as they should, we 

can only buy sunflowers from South America 

now, their phyllaries dark green and immutable, 

it’s $8 for a pack of blueberries now, but we’re happy 

to pay it, all my houseplants – even the purple ones – 

have seasonal depression, and there’s nothing I can do, 

every day another glimpse of all that is shattered, all 

that is holy. Do you see that crush of light 

up ahead, caught in the crevice between a branch 

and its trunk, can you imagine a vessel so large 

it could contain everything, all the water inside 

your body, inside other bodies, trapped beneath 

the earth’s crust, all the metal coursing through 

my blood, my bones, this shell of a home – 

beloved, I’m not so sure we can wait 

any longer, redemption is a feathery thing, 

the body of creation is burning, its entirety, 

each level a mirror, a new shade 

of blue, another angle, one more fiery 

lens. Beloved, there is 

light.