Repentance

It's passover, and now the time has come
when holiness is mostly a clean house.
When all the outward forms of thought and word
demand the inwardness of purity--

the little infestations all must go.

It's only eighteen minutes, so they say,
that matzo dough stays kosher, but I know
it's less that that, because I've seen the way
that dough begins to sour when fresh ground grain
first touches water, even then the bubble rise,

spreading like the words of egypt's wise,
obscuring pure simplicity, the cries
of Rachel's children--lost.

So the exodus must come around again.

In the pale, faint, morning light,
Dawn, with fingers lily white,
in stillness waits for Phoebus bright
to set her all aglow.

And when the sun has risen high,
serenely shines the peaceful sky,
content to watch the hours fly
'til bright beams overflow.

In blaze of glory slips the sun
below the earth when day is done;
in darkness, hid from everyone,
the silent dawn will grow.

These fine, strong sons of mine, it is not right
that they should be required to wait, confined
to savage lawlessness, their growing might
left flailing and unharnessed by the mind,
'til softened by disuse and disarray,
we give their ruined manhood full free reign,
invested safe 'til ripened past decay,
long storing up vast dividends of pain.
But I will call them upward in their youth,
delighting in their full fresh strength and speed.
While still they're young, I'll lead them into truth;
so youth and age supply each other's need.
Toward self nor them, it is no charity
to deny dear sons good labor's dignity.