top of page
Atonement Missed
The Chief Rabbi and my father
met in a dream one night
we arrived for Kol Nidrei in a car
which was not the Chief Rabbi’s habit
but he didn’t complain
merely discussed the world
with my father
We tried to find a parking spot
but all the neighbors had placed
in the street garbage cans
which were filled with the world’s woes
So my father parked next to the shul
but the Chief Rabbi didn’t complain
he stood on the sidewalk, stroked his beard
and started to sing Kol Nidrei
Then my father (not a pious man)
spoke with the neighbors
who emptied their garbage into a truck
that the Chief Rabbi was driving,
when the truck was full of
grief, prayer and atonement
the Chief Rabbi drove off
Leaving my father and me
on a deserted sidewalk
outside a deserted shul
discussing the state of the world
Which, as he died more than
thirty years ago, makes it
a rather repetitious conversation
with all the important things
left unsaid
Like a carousel with a broken section
that the neighbors had loaded into the Rabbi’s truck
and taken away with them
to the garbage dump of dreams
Where every Day of Atonement
it emits the most frightful cries
© Johnmichael Simon
2012
.
bottom of page