A poem for Shabbat by Danny Siegel

Erev Shabbas

by Danny Siegel

It's so stupid,

Wednesday afternoon,

soaked in the idiotica of errands

and all those "things to do"

that steal a man's minutes, his years --

I forgot the Queen.

Her Majesty was due at four-eighteen

on Friday, not a minute later,

and I was wasting hands, words, steps,

racing to a rushing finish-line

of roaring insignificance

I just as well could fill

with preparations for the royal entourage:

cleaning and cleansing each act's doing,

each word's saying,

in anticipation of the Great Event of Shabbas.

Who am I that she should wish

to spend the day with me?

I dry out my strengths, cook, move dust,

casually insensitive to all the songs

reminding me that she, the Queen,

in diamond-ruby-emerald-glow tiara,

would come to grace my table.

She comes,

no matter how the week was spent,

in joy or in silliness,

yet she comes.

And I am her host,

laying a linen flower tablecloth

that is white,

that is all the colors of the rainbow.

This is the Jews' sense of royalty:

she never does not spend one day a week

with me, and every Jew,

in the open air of freedom,

or lightening the misery of prisoners

in stinking Russian prisons

or the ghettoes of Damascus.

Come, my Shabbas Queen,

embodiment of Worlds-to-Be:

Your gracious kindness is our breath of life,

and though we once, twice, all-too-often

fail to say, "how beautiful your cape!

How lovely your hair, your Shechina-eyes!"

we will not always be so lax,

apathetic to your grace, your presence.

Touch us again this week

with your most unique love's tenderness,

and we shall sing to you our songs,

dance our dances in your honor,

and sigh for you our sighs

of longing, peace, and hope.

 

 

Found in  A Shabbat Reader, ed. Dov Peretz Elkins (available on Amazon.) Shabbat shalom to all!