T


And on the day of atonement
God saw that what he'd made

was rich with paradox and
that all the multitude of forms

twisting in the agonies
of birth and dying

were trapped in the vowels
of the sound, and that

he was the sound destined
never to be heard again,

and he was saddened
by his own powerlessness.

And so, with great tenderness
he reached down to each man

and woman to lay a thumb
upon each creased forehead,

and he blew a sigh of purity
into each human mouth

so that the tremor
of the sound

reverberated within them,
and God wept to see

how earnestly his children
on earth strained to hear

what they could never hear,
and to know that even

the green labyrinths of forests,
the great flowerings of clouds,

the deepest gardens of ocean
could not retain the sound,

but only echo and mimic it,
and God saw what he had done

and shook his head and
faded infinitesimally

into each person's heart,
upon each person's tongue.

Maurya Simon