3rd. prize The Final Tune    Zvi A. Sesling

4th prize: Rachel and Joseph        Yakov Azriel

To read the Prize winning poems either scoll down or click on their links above

JohnMichael Simon      FIRST PRIZE 

To Hold the Notes

There was a time

when the notes slept, hibernating,

breathing thumbed parchment,

quiet as cathedrals locked up for the night 
while around parish hearths

stout voices sang their pious words

Then came wax cylinders

wound tightly as bobbins

and squashy shellac blobs

that pressed out and dried the notes to brittle patties 
where winding roads and bumpy paths

guide scratchy thorns along their quavering circuits

Scant revolutions later notes hiss over speeding decks 
in and out of skimpy see-through dresses

while jockeys whirl them back and forth

like dolls at a barnyard square dance

and singles stand around waiting to join the jig

Still fading, the notes, collapsing further

sought refuge in wires, shiny ribbons, skin thin wafers 
that held hieroglyphics of their shrinking glory 
while packets of ones and zeros

carried them from ear to busy ear

Amidst this impersonal mechanical going on

we set our feet upon the northern road

that leads between the towering peaks and rushing streams 
where bird song, rosy apples, fields of cyclamen

and shady cypresses walked beside us down the peaceful ways

And in the valley, beneath the spreading oaks

a classroom beckoned, just a wooden shack

but from its open windows came forth such a blessed sound 
that we, compelled by its beauty, approached

There seated on simple wooden chairs four youngsters sat 
at cello, viola and two violins

and as we watched them play and pause

and play again and annotate and then again

our hearts began to sing with them

and as we smiled and listened on

we knew the notes had found their home
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David Silverman                                Second Prize

What Jessica Hears

My daughter was born on the first day 
of Rosh Hashanah.

And on that day, instead of hearing 
the 100 blasts of the shofar in 
my synagogue, I listened to

Jessica's cries — at least 100 of them,

with the other members of her

first congregation: a minyan of doctors,

nurses, and orderlies, her mother leading

the service, in an elegant hospital gown.

It is taught that the notes of

the shofar  - the single, uninterrupted t'kiah, 
the wavering calls of shvarim and

the staccato sobs of t'ruah — describe

the condition of the soul during a lifetime. 
We are born clear and straight, succumb to

to crookedness as adults, and grieve for our mortality 
in old age. But the final blast of the shofar,

the breathtaking t'kiah g'dolah -  an extended t'kiah, 
powerful and pure -  reminds us that God 
receives the penitent, who seeks to return 
to a state of innocence.

Walking to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah 
when Jessica was 10, she told me that

the shofar sounded like a starving child. 
Where she got this, I do not know,

my daughter, who has never gone to bed hungry. 
But that day, I prayed for all of the world's 
starving children, and for my daughter,

her soul still t'kiahlike. 
And as the sound

of the shofar filled the room, I could not stop 
thinking about her. Holding back tears, I hoped 
that one final time she might hear, in the sound 
of the shofar, that which becomes hidden: 
the sweet, uncomplicated voice of God.

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Zvi A. SESLING                                     THIRD PRIZE

 

The Final Tune

Read this poem at a different pace,

A slow pace like a solitary solemn drum
At a funeral march.

Read it as a dirge,

The measured tune of taps, the slow single
Tear making its way through desert heat
To the lips, where the salt accentuates
Bitterness. It is the poem of the wail
And the howl, the chest beating, the
Torn black cloth, the plain wooden
Casket and the final toss of earth.
It is The poem of death, of sadness immortal
In the heart at the final goodbye.

It is the poem of the senseless and
Needless death inflicted by hate

Carried out by petty mortals for a

God supposed to teach love.

The poem knows love for the

Dead, while the living learn the

Never ending song of sorrow.

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YAKOV AZRIEL                         FOURTH PRIZE

                           Rachel and Joseph

My sister Leah's sons, with their sticks and stones. 
Are playing `war.' They race back and forth

Over the hillsides, trying to catch

Bilhah's boys, who run and hide behind olive trees,

And Zilpah's boys, who kick anyone who comes too close.

 

But Joseph sits here next to me in the shadows,
Squinting at the brightness of sun-washed hills,
Watching ants climb flower petals and blades of grass.
He hums the lullabies and songs I sing him each evening,
Then kisses me and strokes my hands.

Leah's sons laugh when my Joseph tries to run
And stumbles, when he tries to climb a tree

And falls, when he sits next to me in the shadows
Reading, or staring at clouds,

Wincing when the others scream or curse.

 

What will become of my son? He cries

When dogs bark, and feats our flocks of sheep.

Yet he reads the scrolls of the Law his father teaches
Far quicker, far better than all the others,

And tells his father the meaning of each verse, each word.

 

At night I dream my Joseph dances with the moon

And leaps from cliff to cliff as stars applaud and sheaves of grain bow low.
I hear him sing; red cows, both fat and thin, no longer moo,

But join him in his song, and chirp like birds

That bring him baskets full of soft, white bread.

 

But Joseph sits next to me in the shadows.
I tremble;

What will become of him

When scorpions crawl out of pits,

Accompanied by the hiss of snakes?

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