Because whatever other blog-writing I let fall, I will not skip the annual light-in-darkness Chanukah poem. This one is bleaker than usual. My life is OK, if a little lonely and circumscribed by pandemic, etc, but I have an online acquaintance, quite young (30s?) whose husband is dying of cancer. This is for her.
This year’s Chanukah candles
may be next year’s Yahrzeit.
Either way,
the candles of memory
are not enough
to hold back the encroaching dark.
Let other years have their festivities.
This year’s candles are a clew –
a thread of light to hold to
through a dark maze
whose end is past my sight.