orange and Bermuda wine passage

water bongos pulsate

dripping in Talmudic cadence,

silly yawning bugs with Hebrew accents daven and sway,

as another path opens…

so another man’s beard whitens…

and another woman’s heart goldens…

when a sea-weary wooden vessel

packed with 150 bleary souls

at last stumbled into Netanya

that 1947 blue night Friday Shabbos,

the orange and Bermuda wine passage was born,

dragging and tugging along

the ghosts of generation after Yehudim generation.

earnest wanderers

standing alongside destitute jokers,

all nonetheless endowed with hearts

that have remained solid,

beholden,

settled forever in their usual steadfast place

(yes, it is only our transitory heads that frolic,

leaping into miracles or creating dread).

lost and hopeful sailors

abandoned by any thought of love

 or empathy from the world,

those scattered distant 12 tribes somehow converged,

dressed in blue…

dressed in white…

and so this singular race

unabashedly poetic

so serene despite their struggled existence,

mindfully scraped away the rusted ruins of history

from each wet moment in time, digging,

competing for just a glimpse of some gentle refuge,

some inevitable brilliant corner of this land

soaked and tethered in lilting flute joyfulness.

and now today makes 70 years subsequent…

so let us remind our brethren

of these blue and white sailors,

who had forsaken their bodies

and whose hearts long ago emerged

nested in the same place,

this spoonful of humanity having piloted as one,

still celebrating Life,

hopefully, undauntedly,

 hand in hand,

these pirates who once drifted like honey oozing

from a relentless tide,

who stood face to face against

fig wine anointed counterfeit rigid prophets,

enemies who sanctimoniously knelt in extended prayer,

who demanded surrender and conformity

and who chose to honor only their princes

and cannons

and queens…

yes,

it is our calling

to stand with these blue and white sailors,

who bestowed upon us

an orange and Bermuda wine passage,

and who have been protected and honored since

by more curlyhaired steadfast sailors,

who have carried on the weight of decades

of centuries

of millenniums,

trusted survivors who have never wavered…

and from them,

thus at last,  

we are beckoned, harbored,

all of us-

homeward

June 21, 2018