Null and Void

Perhaps I'm inured to it

Seasoned

A little bit too familiar

The old ones keep dying

Been through it before

Sadly

Knowing what to expect

The comments about long life

The brave remarks about the death

The requisite love and adoration

The war stories of caring for the old and frail

But past the cynicism 

Underneath 

Not too far below the surface

Exists a sense of wistfulness

Of longing to go back

To when the old ones were in their prime

When they buffered us 

The next generation

When their homespun faces dotted holiday dinners

The young ones assured of no change

Certain of continuity and always

Only a single old one still lives

For her

At 97 continuity disconnects and always becomes never

Time scampers quickly

Exhibiting an agility no one can stop

We younger ones step up

Reluctantly dotting funeral tables

with our taut faces

As we shield the next ones

Taking our turn

Walking involuntarily toward null and void

©kcasady2014

With An Out Stretched Arm

Sitting at the family Seder

I look around

Liking the people

Some my cousins

Some folks I've never seen before 

Sharing the paschal lamb

As we are bid in the bible

Telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt 

I am obliged to drink four cups of wine

A ritual I'll gladly follow

Perhaps adding in a couple more

Then as the People of the Book

With our reputation on the line

We begin discussing

Flexing our intellects

Flying free from the rigors of observance

We speak of this and that

Mostly Jewish topics 

Allegedly relevant to Passover

The holocaust

And where was the God who

Brought us forth from Egypt

Rained plagues upon our oppressors

Parted the Red Sea and drowned Pharaoh's legions

But even still

The Six Million died at the hands of the Nazis

The wise Seder pundits offer no answer

And I think we should be praying

Practicing our rituals

Upholding our traditions 

Following the Haggadah

Our road map

The book that 

Prescribes the order of the Seder

Prompts us when to break the matzah

Open the door for Elijah

Eat sweet charoset mixed with bitter herbs

And when to drink the wine

Because my old aunt died today

My mother's sister

She nearly made 95

My bitter herbs came early 

Already dipped in salt water

I do not need to debate

Hate

Anti semitism

Zionism

Palestine

I do need prayer

Friendly conversation

A holiday meal

A bit of ritual structure

And the third and fourth glass of wine

Now

©kcasady2014

Choose

Babe or bitch

Which will it be

Pick one or the other

Choose 

Bitch

Strong willed

Loud mouth

Truth sayer

Babe

Cute

Flirty

Curvy

Okay

Say it...

Sexy

If you called me a babe

I’d fall out of my chair

Oh I might be a bit cute and flirty

Maybe even curvy and sexy

But I'd know you lied

A babe I am not

Don’t flatter me

Don’t bullshit me

Just tell me what you want

Then if you called me a bitch

Well I just might take it as a compliment

©kcasady2014

Persona

Tearing Up

Old tales of dead friends

She smashed into an icy killer tree, bled out

So no invitation to her grown up embryo’s wedding

Life, it keeps going

New tales of pancreatic cancer and 

Soon to be dead friends

A shared brita water purifier

The daily death watch reminder 

Current tales of anger

A screaming phone call

Drenched in unresolved fury

At his nearly dead mother

Some days the tears just drip

The silt backs up

Oozes out

Down grey cheeks

Leaving invisible salty trails

Nose runs

Eyes get gooey

And for what

©kcasady2014

Red Sky

The sky is red she whispered to her daughter 

Red from the beginning

Since the creation of the world

When matter came together 

Forming our globe

Mixing the elements

Bending the heavens to the scarlet vault above our heads

The sky is blue she whispered to her mother

The sky wraps us in ruby curtains she said to her daughter

Pregnant with crimson rain

Drenching us with sanguine droplets of dew

Soaking our clothes

Coloring us russet

Transforming us into ripe cherries

The sky is blue she said to her mother

The sky glowed vermillion at night she shouted at her daughter

Dotted with rose stars and a cerise moon

Through the darkness our garnet faces glittered

Wine flushed from claret and burgundy

As we danced naked beneath the bloodshot cosmos

The sky is blue she shouted at her mother

And strode away fading into cerulean haze

©kcasady2014

Right Sized

Her battle was not lost

She still stands today

They never gave it a name

The illness that nearly struck her down

It’s a crap shoot she’d say

A guessing game

Some win

Some lose

Roll the dice

All or nothing

It took nearly two years

Surgeries, radiation, chemo

Leaving one dead kidney

A digestive tract loping along on scars

And the perpetual question

Is it back?

She’s cancelled her future medical appointments

What’s the point she says

Nothing they can do if they find something

So she lives

Travels

Stays at five star resorts

Spoils herself

Her son

Her husband

My every second day phone calls have stopped

No longer necessary

But then

As now

I do not discuss with her the shit storms that kick up in my life

Seemingly serious matters right sized when held up to mortality

I have my health

I face only quality problems

Things I’d deal with everyday

Twenty-four seven

Grateful

For the breath to work through them

©kcasady2014

Queen Esther

Leibe

Love in Yiddish

Esther 

After the Queen of Persia

Leibe Esther

Her Jewish name

Given in the tradition of her ancestors

Called out in the synagogue at her baby naming

Randomly chosen by the rabbi

Yiddish sentimentality

Loaded on top of her American name

Her real name

The one she went by every day

Except at Sunday school

Where each kid went by their Hebrew name

Her teacher crowned her Esther

Changing her Yiddish moniker

To understandable Esther

Hebrew Esther 

Biblical Esther

Savior of the ancient Jews of Persia

Forcing unwanted heroism upon her

She never saw herself as Esther

And even less as Leibe

That sounded like Libby

A musty smelling babushka 

Grey haired 

Plump

Sharp tongued

Thrusting the weight of the shtetl not love upon her

Then one day her aunt

An old Zionist

In whose apartment Golda Meir had once stayed

Told her she could just be Karen 

A ray of sunlight in Hebrew

And the ancient queen of babushkas vanished in the brightness

©kcasady

Haiku

Wailing Wall

L’hitraot

In Hebrew means

See you again

Not goodbye

And that is what she said

But that is not what happened

Because even though she said l’hitraot

She never saw him again

Her Israeli paratrooper

Usurper of her virginity

That summer on the kibbutz

Tall and handsome

Dark wavy hair

Smooth strong body

Piercing blue eyes

Just the way she liked her men

Her cousin had called him black

Like the blacks of your country she’d told her

Because of his Kurdish heritage

But she the young idealist American college student

Summer visitor to the land of milk and honey 

Wanted no part of that racist point of view

And not until she’d reached mature adulthood did she understand

That the Kurdish Jews of Iraq

Keepers of the ancient language of Aramaic

Mountain people

Goat herders and wool dyers

Uneducated

Unsophisticated

Unlike the urban Jews of Baghdad

Became the underdogs of Israeli society

But she’d left a note in a cracked brick of the Wailing Wall

The last remainder of the Second Temple in Jerusalem

A place where Jews go to mourn its destruction

Get married

Pray

In keeping with tradition

She’d tucked a small piece of paper into its ancient rocks

Asking God for a great summer

And he’d sent her Yohoshua Eli

Her delightful love

She spoke a bit Hebrew and he a bit of English

Enough words for their wondrous purpose

Hot slow dusty kibbutz afternoons

Napping

Loving

Teaching each other

Finding enough youthful common ground that

When they parted at the end of the summer

She gave him a necklace

Her name in golden Hebrew letters

And said l’hitraot

Not goodbye

©kcasady2014

Hollywood Kiss

My dear sir 

You simply must work on your Hollywood kiss

Your lips touch hers but

You hold back

Passion must pass between you

You mustn’t contain it or

Guard it

Keeping it to yourself

Saving it

For someone else 

Real or imagined

Perhaps afraid of it

Of its power

That once released

You may never take back

Forever lost to you

But you are an actor so

You must pretend that

She is yours

To take

To possess

All of her

She restlessly awaits 

Release your fervor upon her

Complete her

Answer her

Convince us

The role requires it

©kcasady2014